Arizona’s Supreme Court on Friday determined that the nearly 98,000 voters who have not proved their citizenship due to a glitch in the system can still vote in the November elections.
Arizona law requires voters to file documents that prove their citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections, but not in federal ones. But an error was discovered on Tuesday that revealed thousands of residents had applied for driver’s licenses without proving that they were citizens. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has also admitted the issue and said that the error is being fixed.
The ruling sides with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, who claimed it was too late to do anything about the November election. Fontes also claimed that prohibiting the residents from voting in an election they could easily be qualified to vote in, could raise equal protection and due process concerns.
“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer stated in the ruling, reported by the Associated Press.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer thanked the state Supreme Court for reviewing the matter and issuing an opinion on it quickly.
