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Voter data coding issues in AZ could have been identified and fixed years ago

Voter data coding issues in AZ could have been identified and fixed years ago

Data coding problems affecting Arizona’s voter rolls just before the 2024 presidential election could have been identified and fixed years ago, according to an ABC15 investigation.

Six weeks ago, Maricopa County Clerk Stephen Richer and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced they had found a data coding error in the Arizona driver’s license database that allowed non-Arizona voters to vote in at least one registry.

“It’s not a comfortable position,” Fontes said on September 17.

Void

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Due to data errors, an estimated 218,000 people, or 5% of all Arizona voters, may not have provided proof of citizenship to register under Prop 200, which went into effect in 2004.

Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship to cast a full ballot, although people who do not provide proof can sign an affidavit to vote only in federal races.

Multiple current and former election officials told ABC15 investigators they were unaware of any data coding issues prior to September 2024.

“The fact that this didn’t come to light sooner baffles me a little bit,” said state Sen. Ken Bennett, a Prescott Republican who is also a former Arizona secretary of state.

“From 2009 to 2015, when I was secretary, nothing happened,” said Bennett, who said he was in frequent contact with his election workers and 15 county registrars. “It would have raised the same big red flag.”

After Bennett left office, the matter came to light at least once.

The 2016 case of a foreign voter

In October 2016, ABC15 reported a foreigner could not register as eligible to vote in Maricopa County. At the time, Alan Faygenblat described his actions as an attempt to check “if the system really worked” in preventing voter fraud.

“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” he told ABC15 at the time.

Faygenblat was charged with falsifying voter registration and pleaded guilty in February 2017.

Court records show Faygenblat was an Israeli citizen legally in the United States, but on the Service Arizona website he falsely checked a box saying he was a citizen. He received his voter registration card in the mail.

“We have all these politicians,” Faygenblat said. “They have been in politics for many, many, many, many years and no one has thought about it.”

In 2016, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office described a legal loophole that allowed Faygenblat to register.

“Any person who obtained a driving license after 1996 had to prove citizenship to the MVD. (The person) obtained his driving license in 1994, so he did not have to prove citizenship. However, for some reason he had to get a new driver’s license re-issued after 1996 and a citizenship scan was never performed at that time,” a registrar spokesman told ABC15.

The then Registrar Helen Purcell rejected the notion that it could lead to widespread fraud.

“I think we’ve checked it thoroughly enough, but that’s not the case,” Purcell told ABC15.

Eight years later, the same loophole was discovered with a new citizen who registered to vote in Maricopa County.

Understanding data errors

This month, ABC15 asked representatives of the Department of Motor Vehicles, which manages the driver’s license database, why the agency didn’t fix the flaw back in 2016.

In an email, an MVD spokesman said the 2016 registration “was allowed due to the way the system has operated in the past.”

“MVD identified a decades-old policy that allowed licenses issued after 1996, including duplicates issued after 1996, to be accepted as evidence of authorized presence for license reinstatement and renewal purposes,” he added. The policy was created in 1997 in response to the 1996 law. He also said the MVD “has now changed the system to provide election officials with the information they need to register voters.”

The MVD policy was introduced years before the 2004 election law change under Proposition 200, which said that driver’s licenses and ID cards issued after October 1, 1996 could be used as proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time.

The two laws did not overlap perfectly, but election officials trusted the MVD data to confirm whether someone provided proof of citizenship and obtained a driver’s license or ID card after 1996.

MVD now tells ABC15 the following issues occurred in data exchanged with the state voter database:

  • All pre-1996 driving license holders were also citizens covered by the code, although some were not. MVD did not require proof of legal status before 1996.
  • The MVD data did not necessarily show the original license issue date. The agency used the most recent license date, which may be the date of duplicate, renewal or reinstatement. This made it impossible to clearly distinguish pre- and post-1996 license holders.

The governor ordered an audit to review MVD’s policies and procedures. Auditors want to determine how and when these data errors began and propose solutions to prevent future problems.
Numerous electoral processes

ABC15 also reached out to three election lawyers who have been litigating for years over Arizona’s citizenship law and its administration. Until this year, no one had heard of widespread data errors.

“We have had Republican and Democratic governors and state and county reporter secretaries for 20 years. They all had a hand in it and no one noticed,” said lawyer Kory Langhofer.

Each said their own court cases and other voter roll investigations rarely turned up unauthorized voters.

“In neither case was any prevention prevented or evidence presented to show that large numbers of people or foreigners voted (in our elections),” ASU election law professor Patty Ferguson-Bohnee said.

“Our joint expert on the plaintiff’s side found that there were errors at times,” said Ernest Herrera, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “However, a federal district court found that the system was generally reliable.”

Next steps

Despite the court’s request to publish the list, the names of the incorrectly coded voters were not provided.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that they would be able to vote normally on November 5.

Officials are still working on a plan to fix voter rolls after the election. There are preliminary discussions about requiring voters affected by a data error to provide proof of citizenship before voting in future elections if they wish to continue to vote with their full ballot.

Have a story tip? ABC15 Senior Investigator Melissa can be reached by email at [email protected] or call 602-803-2506. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @Melissa Blasius or on Facebook.