America First Legal (AFL), on behalf of the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, has filed a lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and his office. The lawsuit claims that Secretary Fontes has unlawfully withheld a list of over 218,000 individuals who registered to vote without providing proof of citizenship, a requirement under Arizona law.
Arizona law mandates that voter registration must include proof of U.S. citizenship, and Secretary Fontes oversees the system responsible for verifying this information statewide. However, on September 6, 2024, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer exposed a flaw in the system that had allowed tens of thousands of individuals to register without submitting the necessary documentation. This issue became public when Richer filed an emergency petition with the Arizona Supreme Court on September 17, seeking to prevent these registrants from voting in state and local elections.
In response, Secretary Fontes revealed that 97,928 registered voters were incorrectly listed as having provided proof of citizenship, though they had not. The Arizona Supreme Court ultimately ruled that these individuals should remain eligible to vote in state and local races, while county recorders could continue investigating their citizenship status.
Shortly after Recorder Richer’s legal filing, AFL, representing EZAZ.org, requested a public list of those unlawfully registered voters. However, Secretary Fontes denied the request, citing concerns about potential voter harassment—a claim AFL dismisses as unfounded. Fontes’s refusal also referenced the difficulty of compiling the list, although AFL argues the list had already been created.
Arizona’s public records law obligates Secretary Fontes to disclose such voter information upon request. Fontes’s office regularly releases voter lists but has yet to provide any evidence of harassment resulting from such disclosures. Moreover, Fontes has withheld the list from county recorders, hindering their ability to verify the citizenship status of affected individuals, as required by state law.
On September 30, 2024, Secretary Fontes revealed the problem extended beyond what was originally disclosed, identifying an additional 120,000 voters potentially affected by a coding oversight between the Motor Vehicle Division and voter registration databases. This brings the total number of registered voters lacking proof of citizenship to 218,000—a figure far exceeding the 10,457-vote margin in the 2020 Arizona presidential race.
AFL has now filed a lawsuit to compel Secretary Fontes to comply with the law and release the voter list immediately.
Read the lawsuit here.
