Arizona Supreme Court rules 98,000 people whose citizenship is unconfirmed can vote in pivotal election

Nearly 98,000 people whose U.S. citizenship has not been confirmed will be allowed to vote in the upcoming state and local elections, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The ruling came after a “coding oversight” in state software prompted the swing state’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to insist that he would send out ballots to those affected anyway.

The database error called into question the citizenship status of 100,000 registered Arizona voters, affecting individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses before October 1996, and subsequently received duplicates before registering to vote after 2004.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes looks on during a House Administration Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)

Fontes and Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County recorder, disagreed on what status the voters should hold following the “coding oversight.”
“This was discovered not because somebody was voting illegally and not because somebody was attempting to vote illegally, as far as we can tell,” Fontes said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. “And this was basic voter roll maintenance, and it showed us that there is this issue.”

A voter fills out her ballot during early voting. (Reuters/Nick Oxford)

Richer filed a special action Tuesday asking the state Supreme Court to settle the question.

“It is my position that these registrants have not satisfied Arizona’s documented proof of citizenship law, and therefore can only vote a ‘FED ONLY’ ballot,” Richer wrote on X.

FILE – A woman walks to cast her ballot after filling it in a privacy booth while voting in the gubernatorial election in Newark, New Jersey, Nov. 2, 2021.  (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)

The error comes as Arizona Republicans and a conservative watchdog group have been pushing for stricter voting measures that require proof of U.S. citizenship to participate in state and federal elections. Arizona is also a swing state that flipped blue in the 2020 presidential election. 

Fox News Digital’s Jamie Jospeh and the Associated Press contributed to this report.