Here’s what voters should do if they get a proof-of-citizenship request in Arizona’s Maricopa County
Two letters came out. One was a mistake. The other explains how to make sure you can continue to vote in the national and local elections.
By Jen Fifield for the beat
The voters of the county of Maricopa who recently received letters from the Recordor’s office on their registration status can be confused by the two distinct shipments, including one incorrect. But in any case, they will soon have to act to ensure that they can continue to vote in the national and local elections.
The recorder office sent the first letter of error At 83,000 voters, telling them that the office had noticed that they had left the state and that they would be withdrawn from the active electoral lists if they did not act. The disconcerted voters began to receive these shipments on June 26.
The office then sent the shipment that the voters were supposed to obtain, with an additional explanation in fat at the top explaining that the initial shipment was an error. This letter explained to the voters how they should provide documents proving their American citizenship, Due to a separate error This affected 200,000 voters throughout the state.
In the county of Maricopa, these voters will have 90 days to respond with a birth certificate, a passport or another document. If they do not, they will be classified as federal voters and authorized to vote only in the presidential races and the congress.
The letters caused generalized confusion among beneficiaries and explanatory requests. After the release of the incorrect letter, the average waiting times at the county call center jumped from a few seconds to 10 minutes or more for three days and culminated at more than 40 minutes, according to the voting data obtained through requests for public files.
The recorder’s office did not make a public declaration on incorrect letters for more than a day after the voters began to receive them, which meant that civil servants and residents seeking information from the office did not find. The vote to vote first pointed out the incorrect mail On June 26, and many voters said that history had provided the only information they have obtained.
Many voters later said that the voting was believed that the letter was a sign of something harmful.
“My wife and I both got one and think that someone had used information on a data leak to eliminate fraudulent identifiers,” said Shane Watson, from Phoenix.
Phoenix Kristopher Bliznick said that he “thought it was a kind of suppression of voters”.
“I thought they were trying to passively push the people of the electoral breads,” he said.
Why some long -standing voters from Arizona are invited to prove their citizenship
The letters to voters are part of the current effort in all the counties of Arizona to correct an error in the holding of the state dossier disclosed last summer. For 20 years, The state said that it had not succeeded in collecting the documentary evidence of American citizenship for certain voters when they first register to vote or updated their recording after moving through the county. About 200,000 voters, or around 5% of the list of state voters, were taken in this error, including the 83,000 voters from the county of Maricopa who received the letters from the recorder.
These voters are all long -standing residents, and some have lived in Arizona and have been registered to vote for decades. But because the law of the State requires that proof of citizenship vote in the national and local elections, these voters will now have to provide this proof to continue to vote a full ballot.
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Federal law does not require documentary evidence of citizenship. It forces voters to attest to their citizenship in pain of perjury. Voters of Arizona who do not provide evidence of citizenship can still vote in the federal elections, because they have already attested their citizenship when they register to vote.
What the voters of the county of Maricopa should do if they receive the letters
In the county of Maricopa, the second letter – which is dated June 27 at the top – explains how affected voters can solve the problem.
Voters can use the return envelope provided to return their name, address and a copy of a document proving their citizenship, such as a birth certificate or a passport. Voters can also send the documentation by e-mail to voterinfo@maricopa.gov, or provide documentation to the Recordor’s office at 301 W. Jefferson Street in Phoenix.
Voters from other counties who have received similar letters should contact their recorder’s office to learn how to solve the problem.
The Office of the Secretary of State initially provided a means for voters to check online if they were on the list of affected voters, but no longer. Voters who have questions about their file can contact The office of their county recorder.
Why the incorrect letters were published
Recording from the county of Maricopa Justin Heap and his staff first blamed the complete printed complex, a seller that the office hired to send the letters, for the incorrect mail. The office said in his first declaration that the seller “had ensured the full responsibility of the error”.
But Emails reported for the first time by 12 news On June 30, shown that an employee of the Recordor office had approved proof of the incorrect letter. And in an e-mail sent a few days after the discovery of the error, a complete employee of the written press told a member of the county staff who dealt with the problem that “the evidence using the bad model had been sent and approved by the Record office”.
However, the emails have shown that the complete printing said that sending the incorrect letter was an error on its part and confirmed that it would post a letter corrected at its expense.
After the public release of these emails, Heap published a second declaration confirming that his office had wrongly approved the incorrect letter.
The full printing house did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comments.
Longtime voters outside the county of Maricopa are also invited to prove citizenship
The 83,000 voters of the county of Maricopa who received the letters are among the 200,000 state voters who are invited to prove their citizenship due to state error.
Counties inform voters about their own deadlines, with their own processes to collect the documentation.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes first mentioned the creation of an online portal where voters could safely download their documents, but this has not happened, and the counties are instead to collect documents through all possible methods.
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Document requests have confused voters through the state. And the consequences for voters who do not provide documents will depend on the county in which they live. The county of Maricopa makes them federal voters, while other counties are currently predicting to remove the voters from the roles entirely, or not to modify their status as a voter.
The Attorney General Kris Mayes is expected to issue an official opinion on how counties should resolve the registration status for people who do not provide proof of citizenship in time.
