Arizona's Voter Roll Controversy: Deception, Incompetence, or Both?

By Sam Stone

Screaming headlines and an Elon Musk tweet about 218,000 Arizona voters not having provided proof of citizenship – but being allowed to remain on the voter rolls – are deceptive. These voters have largely been residents of Arizona for years – in many cases decades – and the problem ties more to the Arizona MVD’s shift to REAL ID complaint IDs, and not forwarding past citizenship proof with that transfer, than to improper registrations. Is it possible a small percentage of these are ineligible voters? Certainly, but most are U.S. citizens and legal residents of the state. If all 218,000 that we now know about were removed, about 10,000 more Republicans would be affected than Democrats. 

There is an underlying concern here, however – incompetence, and possibly collusive, questionably legal, actions coordinated between Arizona’s Democrat Governor, Katie Hobbs, and Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes who were caught on a call attempting to downplay the issue. Additionally, while Fontes won a court case regarding 98,000 of these voters that allows them to vote a full ballot, almost immediately after the case was decided, Fontes’ office released the new information showing the problem as far more widespread than was known at the time of the ruling. Further, Fontes office now says that even more voters may have been affected. 

Is this an issue of voter fraud? Probably not.

Is it another example of Hobbs & Fontes being both dishonest and incompetent? Absolutely.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Sam Stone only and not his co-host Chuck Warren or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.