According to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Arizona’s Democrat Elections Chief is allegedly withholding the names of roughly 218,000 registered voters on the country’s voter rolls without supporting documentation.
The legal challenge, brought by the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona (SCFA ) against Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Arizona Department of State, “aims to restore public trust in [Arionza’s ] electoral system by ensuring transparency about the Defendants ‘ failures to ensure that registered voters have provided DPOC, as required by law.” America First Legal, a law firm led by former Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright, and the class are represented by them.
The lawsuit addresses a problem that first became public last month when Arizona election officials disclosed that they had discovered about 98, 000 listed “full-ballot” voters who had not provided the required video citizenship to vote in state and local votes. The problem appears to have resulted “from the way the Motor Vehicle Division provides pilot’s license details to the country’s voter registration system”, according to , Votebeat Arizona.
Fontes said most of the damaged citizens are registered Republicans, according to the store.
In Arizona,  , voters , registering via state subscription form must present DPOC to vote in state and local tribes. People who are unable to provide for documentation are referred to as “federal-only” citizens and are limited to casting ballots in national elections.
After the first identification, Fontes held a Sept. 10 telephone call with Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, according to sound obtained by the Washington Post. In this visit, they discussed, among other subjects, the possibility of filing what Fontes officially termed a “friendly complaint” designed to move the matter to the courts, according to the store.
Maricopa County Recorder , Stephen Richer filed for a match, the Post noted, with the Arizona Supreme Court, arguing the citizens in question may be classified as “federal-only” until they provide DPOC. Fontes and the Arizona GOP , argued , the same — that these citizens should be granted full-ballot position for the common election since they are not at fault for the government’s “error”. In the case, the Strong Communities Foundation for Arizona and state resident Yvonne Cahill filed an amicus brief, contending that the great court may require county recorders to” send whole ballots to all Affected Voters on the first voting list” and should likewise “order… all ballots returned by Affected Voters to be segregated pending confirmation of the voter’s citizenship.
In the end, the Arizona Supreme Court sided with Fontes and the Republican Party, with Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer claiming that the jury is “unwilling on these information to alienate voters en mass from participating in position events.”
Fontes announced on Monday, nevertheless, that his company has identified an extra 120, 000 registered full-ballot citizens — most of whom are Republicans — lacking DPOC, bringing the total number of affected votes to 218, 000. The assistant’s company argued these newly discovered citizens are covered by the Arizona Supreme Court’s latest decision.
In order to provide” clarity about the Accused ‘ failures to ensure that registered voters have provided DPOC, as required by law, SCFA “filed a legitimate public records request seeking the record of these people.” The plaintiff claims that Fontes and the Arizona Department of State “are stonewalling and have unlawfully refused to fulfill” its request in an ostensible attempt to “insulat[e]e themselves from embarrassment.”
The Plaintiffs ‘ summary denial of the Plaintiff’s request for reasonable and specific public records presupposes that the Plaintiffs must bear the burden of providing a justification for their demand. However, this gets things exactly backward”, the lawsuit reads. Public officials must provide sufficient evidence to shift the focus away from the presumption of disclosure to nondisclosure and must bear the burden of demonstrating that a public records request [poses ] an unreasonable administrative burden.
The Plaintiff files this special action to compel production of the requested public records because the defendants improperly denied the Plaintiff’s request for public records and because no exception to the Public Records Law applies, it continued.
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The Arizona Department of State and Fontes have been ordered by the Supreme Court of Maricopa County to grant” special action relief” by the SCFA, which requires Fontes to “produce or make available to the Plaintiff all public records requested by its [public records request ] no later than October 7.”
SCFA Chair Merissa Hamilton lambasted Fontes for handling this” seemingly never-ending debacle,” which, according to her, “has raised significant voter concerns and sown doubt in the election administration — [again].”
” The lack of transparency to our county recorders and refusal to provide them the databases they need to do their job in voter maintenance, impacting 5 % of our voters, further begs us to ask,’ What is]Fontes ] hiding?'” she said. The best way to achieve this is to provide transparency and lessen voters ‘ worries. This lawsuit intends]to] instill transparency and trust back into our election administration”.
The Federalist requested comment from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes ‘ office, but he did not.
The Federalist staff writer Shawn Fleetwood graduated from the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClear Health, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
