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Maricopa County voters who recently received letters from the Recorder’s Office about their registration status may be confused by the two separate mailings, including one that’s incorrect. But no matter what, they will need to act soon to make sure they are able to continue to vote in state and local elections.
The Recorder’s Office sent the first letter in error to 83,000 voters, telling them the office had gotten notice they had moved out of state and they would be removed from the active voter rolls if they didn’t act. Flummoxed voters began receiving those mailings on June 26.
The office then sent out the mailing that the voters were supposed to get, with an added explanation in bold at the top explaining that the initial mailing was a mistake. This letter told voters about how they would need to provide documentation proving their U.S. citizenship, because of a separate error that affected 200,000 voters statewide.
In Maricopa County these voters will have 90 days to respond with a birth certificate, passport or other document. If they do not, they will be classified as federal-only voters, and permitted to vote only in presidential and congressional races.
The letters prompted widespread confusion among recipients and demands for an explanation. After the incorrect letter went out, average wait times at the county’s call center jumped from just seconds to 10 minutes or more for three days, and peaked at more than 40 minutes, according to data Votebeat obtained through public records requests.
The Recorder’s Office did not make a public statement about the incorrect letters for more than a day after voters began to receive them, which meant public officials and residents searching for information from the office could not find any. Votebeat first reported the incorrect mailing on June 26, and many voters said that story provided the only information they were able to obtain.
Many voters later told Votebeat that they believed the letter was a sign of something nefarious.
“My wife and I both got one and thought someone had used info of ours from a data leak to take out fraudulent IDs,” said Shane Watson, of Phoenix.
Kristopher Bliznick of Phoenix said he “thought it was some sort of voter suppression.”
“I thought they were trying to passively push people off the voter rolls,” he said.
Why some longtime Arizona voters are being asked to prove their citizenship
The letters to voters are part of the effort underway in all Arizona counties to correct a state record-keeping error that was disclosed last summer. For 20 years, the state said, it had failed to collect documentary proof of U.S. citizenship for some voters when they first registered to vote or updated their registration after moving across county lines. About 200,000 voters, or roughly 5% of the state’s voter roll, were caught up in that error, including the 83,000 Maricopa County voters who received the letters from the Recorder’s Office.
These voters are all longtime residents, and some have lived in Arizona and been registered to vote for decades. But because state law requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, these voters will now need to provide that proof to continue to vote a full ballot.
Federal law does not require documentary proof of citizenship. It requires voters to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury. Arizona voters who do not provide citizenship proof can still vote in federal elections, because they have already attested to their citizenship when registering to vote.
What Maricopa County voters should do if they receive the letters
In Maricopa County, the second letter — which is dated June 27 at the top — explains how affected voters can resolve the problem.
The voters can use the return envelope provided to send back their name, address, and a copy of a document proving their citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. The voters can also send the documentation by email to voterinfo@maricopa.gov, or bring the documentation to the Recorder’s Office at 301 W. Jefferson Street in Phoenix.
Voters in other counties who have received similar letters should contact their recorder’s office to learn how to fix the problem.
The Secretary of State’s Office initially provided a way for voters to check online whether they were on the list of affected voters, but isn’t doing that anymore. Voters who have questions about their record can contact their county recorder’s office.
Why incorrect letters went out
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and his staff at first blamed Complete Print Shop, a vendor the office hired to send the letters, for the incorrect mailing. The office said in its first statement that the vendor “has taken full responsibility for the mistake.”
But emails first reported by 12 News on June 30 showed an employee of the Recorder’s Office had approved a proof of the incorrect letter. And in an email sent a few days after the error was uncovered, a Complete Print Shop employee told a county staff member looking into the issue that “the proof using the wrong template was sent and approved by the recorder office.”
Nonetheless, the emails showed that Complete Print Shop said the mailing of the incorrect letter constituted a mistake on its part, and confirmed that it would mail a corrected letter at its own expense.
After those emails were publicly released, Heap put out a second statement confirming that his office had erroneously approved the proof of the incorrect letter.
Complete Print Shop did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment.
Longtime voters outside of Maricopa County are also being asked to prove citizenship
The 83,000 Maricopa County voters who received the letters are among the 200,000 voters in the state who are being asked to prove their citizenship because of the state error.
Counties are notifying voters on their own timelines, with their own processes to collect the documentation.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes at first mentioned creating an online portal where voters could securely upload their documents, but that did not occur, and counties instead are left to collect the documents through whatever methods they can.
The requests for documents have confused voters across the state. And the consequences for voters who don’t provide the documents will depend on the county they live in. Maricopa County is making them federal-only voters, while other counties currently plan to eventually take the voters off of the rolls entirely, or make no change to their voter status at all.
Attorney General Kris Mayes is expected to issue a formal opinion on how counties should resolve the registration status of people who don’t provide citizenship proof in time.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.
