Are 50,000 Illegals Being Purged from Arizona’s Voter Rolls?
The Truth Behind the Headlines
By Sam Stone
Fox News broke a story this week that 50,000 non-citizens were about to be removed from Arizona voter rolls. That story was incorrect. Here’s what really happened:
All 15 Arizona counties agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona with the assistance of America First Legal
The settlement requires county Recorders to send a letter to the Department of Homeland Security requesting instructions and guidance for submitting batch voter info to check the registrations of approximately 50,000 Arizonans who haven’t provided proof of citizenship and are registered for a “federal-only” ballot against the DHS database of non-citizens.
DHS has yet to respond affirmatively.
Currently, the DHS system only allows users to check single records, not submit a batch of records for electronic verification.
If DHS creates the technical capacity to match voter databases against the DHS database, Arizona counties will do so. That won’t result in 50,000 people being removed from the voter roll (evidence suggests the majority of federal-only voters are citizens who just haven’t provided the documentation) but it would allow Arizona to identify and remove some number of non-citizens from our voter registration lists. That’s worth doing, even if the headlines have been bit overhyped.
In addition to being one of the hosts of Breaking Battlegrounds, Sam Stone is currently serving as chief of staff to Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap.
