Election officials in the swing state of Arizona have restored thousands of people without verified citizenship to the voter rolls after a glitch exposed up to 218,000 who registered without proof.
Once the glitch was found, officials in Maricopa County last month contacted voters individually to give them an opportunity to provide proof. But then the decision was made to waive the requirement, Fox News reported.
"However, after further consideration, the decision was made to fully restore those voters from the not registered status, only if they were previously an existing, registered voter," Maricopa County Recorder's office told Fox News.
"Additionally, we know roughly 2,000 voters who were impacted in the MVD data oversight submitted voter registration updates and some of those may have been contacted about providing DPOC," the statement read.
"But since then, regardless of if they have provided that additional information, they have since been restored their original status for this election."
Arizona requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, but voters who lack proof and swear that they are citizens can vote "federal only," meaning only for U.S. president and Congress.
The Arizona Court of Appeals has ordered the state to release the full list of 218,000 voters, over the objections of Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
The court found that Fontes had given "inconsistent" testimony about his office's records, after he claimed that only a partial list of 98,000 voters existed.
The push for the records came from America First Legal, a conservative watchdog founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Fontes has claimed sharing the list would lead to partisan intimidation.
"I’ll tell you exactly what I think these folks are planning. I think they are planning on going after voters that they politically disagree with. I think they're planning on knocking on their doors and trying to intimidate them out of voting. I mean these folks, these folks are shameless in their legal efforts. They believe that their right to investigate and harass voters is more important than their right to actually cast a ballot," Fontes said.
Last month, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that 98,000 voters impacted by the glitch should be able to cast full ballots, citing the short notice.
Maricopa County is the most populated in Arizona, containing about 62% of the state's population. President Biden flipped Arizona to the Democrats in 2020 by just 10,000 votes.
