A so-called error in the Arizona Motor Vehicle Department’s (MVD) system, which provides driver’s license information to the state’s voter registration system for citizenship verification, has caused 97,000 voter registrations to be approved without verifying citizenship.
This has apparently been happening for 20 years and was somehow not discovered until now.
This comes just days before military and overseas ballots are set to be mailed out on Thursday. Early ballots will be sent to voters across the state on October 9.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer announced on Tuesday that his office is suing the Secretary of State’s office after discovering a loophole in the state’s voter registration system that, Richer says, for 20 years has allowed individuals who received a driver’s license before 1996 to vote without citizenship verification.
The issue has existed since 2004, when Arizona began requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote. Licenses issued before Arizona required proof of citizenship to drive in 1996, regardless of citizenship status, showed as proof of citizenship on file with the MVD.
“If a driver received a license prior to 1996, he did not have a documented proof of citizenship on file. But then, if he got a duplicate license (e.g. in the case of losing a license), the issuance date would be updated in the statewide voter registration’s interface with MVD,” Richer said.
“The number is about 97,000 registrants across the state.” According to the lawsuit, “there are 53,445 Affected Voters in Maricopa County.” . .
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It's a feature, not a bug. The system is working as expected... Stop (((noticing))) or your car might drive itself into a lake.
