The Washington Post reports (free-access link).
Their predicament was “an urgent, a dire situation,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said, according to audio of the call obtained by The Washington Post. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said critics would “beat us up no matter what the hell we do.” Attorney General Kris Mayes worried they would be accused of rigging the 2024 election in a crucial state....
Fontes kicked off the call by explaining an obscure problem that had gone unaddressed for 20 years. In 2004, Arizona passed a law requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship to vote. After nearly a decade of litigation, the Supreme Court in 2013 ruled a federal law prevented the state from requiring proof of citizenship to vote for president and other federal offices.
To comply, the state adopted a unique, dual-registration system. Those who provide citizenship documents receive full ballots that include local, state and federal races. Those who do not receive ballots with only races for federal offices....
This month.... Fontes’s office found tens of thousands... had been marked as eligible to receive full ballots even though there was no record of them having provided citizenship documents. Now the three Democrats discussed what to do. State law didn’t allow the state to provide these voters with full ballots but federal law bars states from making wholesale changes to their voter registration lists fewer than 90 days before an election, Fontes said on the call....
Fontes sided with Mayes, saying, “I have no intention of notifying 148,000 voters at this stage of the game that they have to scramble around when the state of Arizona has been providing them full ballots all this time.”....
“Can you imagine telling 67,000 Republicans they can’t vote on the abortion initiative,” Mayes asked, her tone incredulous. “I mean, Katie, I understand your point about not politicizing this, but the reality is that if we let this happen, all of these elections are challengeable. They’re going to be calling for a new election.”...
Fontes and Richer asked the state Supreme Court to quickly give them an answer. Around the same time, Hobbs announced the computer issues at the division of motor vehicles that caused the problem had been quickly fixed. Soon after, the court issued a ruling that said the voters’ eligibility to cast full ballots should remain in place....
In the litigation, the Democratic leaders found allies among Republicans who recognized that their party had the most to lose because so many of their voters were on the list....
But others pounced on the problem...
Pounced!
... just as Fontes and the others predicted. Laura Loomer, a far-right backer of Trump, on social media alleged the state “may have just illegally registered 100,000 illegal aliens to vote!”
ADDED: The link at "Soon after, the court issued a ruling" goes to the September 20 WaPo article "Arizona’s top court says voters missing citizenship proof can receive full ballots/Nearly 100,000 voters will receive regular ballots this fall even though there is no record that they submitted citizenship documentation, as is required to vote in state and local elections." Excerpt:
The Arizona Supreme Court’s chief justice ruled Friday that nearly 100,000 voters should receive regular ballots this fall even though there is no record that they had submitted documentation to state officials proving they are citizens....
Election officials said they were confident all or nearly all of the voters are citizens, but some allies of former president Donald Trump seized on the issue to suggest large numbers of immigrants could be voting illegally....
Litigation over the [Arizona] law persisted for years, and in 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled federal law requires the state to allow registered voters to cast ballots for president and other federal offices even if they have not provided proof of citizenship. In response, the state created a dual registration system that allows people to receive ballots that include races for state and local offices only if they prove they are citizens....
The people on the list account for about 2 percent of the state’s 4.1 million registered voters. They received their initial driver’s licenses before 1996, got a replacement license sometime after that date and subsequently submitted a voter registration application, either because they moved or registered to vote for the first time.
When they received the replacement license, the state’s computer systems indicated to local elections officials that they had provided citizenship documents even though there is no record that they had. The flaw has existed since 2004, when the state began requiring proof of citizenship for voting, officials said....
The fight over citizenship documents continues in a separate, long-running case. In 2022, Republican state legislators passed a law to require voters to provide proof of citizenship to vote in all elections, not just state and local ones. Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizonans can register to vote for federal elections without providing proof of citizenship while the case continues. It could eventually return to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here's a discussion at SCOTUSblog of that August decision from the U.S. Supreme Court: "Justices allow Arizona to enforce proof-of-citizenship law for 2024 voter registration":
A divided Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon granted a request from the Republican National Committee and the Republican leaders of Arizona’s legislature to reinstate a state law that requires residents to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote using a form provided by the state. The court turned down a request, however, to reinstate the portion of the same law that would bar voters who register using a standard federal form from voting for president or by mail unless they provide proof of citizenship.
The vote was 5-4. In a brief unsigned order, three of the court’s conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch – indicated that they would have granted the RNC’s application to fully reinstate the law.
Four other justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – indicated that they would have denied the RNC’s request in its entirety, keeping in place a ruling by a federal district court in Arizona blocking the state from enforcing the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not publicly signal how they voted, but they must have provided the two remaining votes necessary to revive the portion of the law dealing with the state form....
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What a bunch of government fuck ups.
We are told that computer gliches are fake, not real - and shut up - if gliches help democrats win.
The entire point of letting 7+ million illegal entrants in - is to make sure democrats win - and not just win - give them super-majorities and a one-Party state forever.
Federal law allows illegals to vote. G? Who saw that coming?
1. Who recorded the call and why?
2. Who leaked the call to WaPo?
3. “And it’s going to validate all of their theories about illegal voting in our elections, even though we all know that’s not true.” We know no such thing.
pretty Sure, that the "dire situation" that troubles Gov Katie; is: PEOPLE FINDING OUT
as far as the feature (not a flaw), that allows illegals to vote; i doubt she had any problems
glitches, mis counts, goofs, slip ups and errors.. Isn't it INTERESTING? that they ALWAYS roll one way?
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said critics would “beat us up no matter what the hell we do.”
No, Adrian. You get beat up because you are a cheat and a crook. You were a cheat and a crook when you were Maricopa County Recorder and you're still a cheat and a crook.
It turned out in 2020 that you didn't need to hack into the voting machines, you only needed to write a Python script to go out and muck up the printer settings in precincts that voted heavily Republican. The candidate for governor was in charge of these matters as Secretary of State, and did not recuse herself, and magically won! Who could have figured that those printer settings would get messed up, on Election Day, no less. Go figure.
Oh, and that "heat map" on the wall in the election office that showed where Republicans voted in large numbers, and which corresponded to the printer failures? Circulez! Rien à voir!
They are stealing state by state, and when they get a permanent Senate majority, and win the House and the Presidency, they are going to pack the Supreme Court. It's inevitable. There is far too much power and wealth at stake to expect that elections based mainly on the honor system will hold out forever against sociopaths like Joe Biden and his enablers.
These matters are too important to be trusted to the voters!
why do we continue to pretend to have elections at all?
it seems like a waste of time and money. Let's just ADMIT that we live in a fascist dictatorship, and just let the Democrat Party run things.. They will Anyway
There is absolutely no proof of voter fraud here.
None.
"Now the three Democrats discussed what to do. State law didn’t allow .... but federal law bars states from making wholesale changes....fewer than 90 days before an election, Fontes said on the call.... "
And was the call scheduled 89 days before the election, my what a coincidence ! - and then leaked to show how upstanding the three Democrats are.
But 98,000 isn't a huge number. Set the ballots to the side, verify the citizenships individually, and count the remaining ballots. Shouldn't take more than a day or two, amirite?
Back Off! I got this one... NO STANDING!
@Dave Begley
I thought of those questions too.
I think the call was leaked to WaPo and published by WaPo to help the electoral cause of the Democrats, so I'd like to see analysis of WHY this is helpful to them. It is being used to say we are sensitive to the legal requirements and finding the problems and earnestly trying to fix them and it's a shame that people will think we are partisan or that this could be used to infer that there are other problems like this, because you can see — look at us, in action — that we detect and solve the problems even as they suddenly arise and this is a problem that ostensibly hurt Republicans more than Democrats, so look how exemplary were we. Take that into account when you hear other charges against us.
Isn't this called 'Pre-bunking'? Whereby you have a plan that will be subject to an expected onslaught of criticism when it's executed, and so you run plays in advance to defuse the future protests of foul play, and diffuse their power by conditioning the audience to expect, and then be prone to dismiss such claims? It would be much more believable if it wasn't such an obvious set-up, and wasn't such a manageable problem
A very interesting read about good people trying to do the right thing.
Good thing they went to court and got a judge's ruling.
They found a problem, considered the law, considered ramifications, brought others on board, and took action. It is so refreshing to read about good leadership.
That’s it. Steal it state-by-state. That PA S. Ct. Opinion that SCOTUS denied cert on was the worst I have ever read.
All "glitches" only help Democrats. Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?
Then they board up the windows and just announce that Democrats won and the media rolls with that.
America is dead.
Staged call
Yes, Aggie. A modified limited hangout.
What is the percentage of citizens who would not find it easy to prove their citizenship? What percentage of these voters are thought to not be citizens?
What good people are you talking about. These are the people who f*cked this up to begin with.
OK, I am deleting. Maybe I don't understand this situation quite well enough. But I do understand the unintended hilarity of that line.
--- Now the three Democrats discussed what to do.
TETCTETD: "Good leadership" would have had someone other than a gubernatorial candidate in the Secretary of State job running the election. Good leadership would have identified the problem years prior.
Stop turdpolishing these people.
The fact that Arizona’s ruling elite have blamed their election fraud scheme on a “computer glitch” is conclusive proof of their intent to corrupt the election. This isn’t 1954 when Grade B sci-fi could construct a plausible storyline around a computer glitch. (When was the last time a data processing calamity was plausibly blamed on a faulty computer rather than defective or malicious software?) It’s 2024, a time when everybody, including the coddled criminals who have invaded the United States with the blessings and connivance of the Democratic Party, carries a computer in his pocket that makes a 1954 Univac look like an abacus. People aren’t very sophisticated when it comes to how a transistor works , nor have many assembled a logic gate on a breadboard as a lab exercise, but they rely on them. They know how to navigate the internet, and they know that when their Google search into the crimes of Joe Biden produces pages of calumnies against Trump that human intent is to blame and not a cheap sci-fi deus ex machina.
No, NO the paper tells us it was 'candid' to help us believe its truthiness.
No, Hobbs is pretty skilled at vote fraud. That's how she got elected in 2022.
Her SOS election was high on Soros' agenda.
When I was an Arizona Democrat we were reasonably competent and didn't steal elections. Now they are not and they do. I am proud to be an ex-Arizona Democrat.
Yup. The two of them validated Soros theory of how to take over America. Invest in those obscure local elections.
bich knows he/she is lying and daring us to do something about it.
enough when the state went Biden by 14,000
"A very interesting read about good people trying to do the right thing." Funny, I read it as three nitwits having no idea what to do trying to cover their asses by asking a judge (who will make something up).
They are importing enough to replace you.
My longstanding theory is that much of the hostility by both left and right towards any scrutiny of voting processes is not due to fear that fraud would be exposed, but the fear that it would expose how incompetent and corrupt local and state election officials are.
How about a full and transparent investigation that explains what happened? Instead of Mueller investigations that delete all the evidence at the end, like was also done after Jan. 6th investigation, and the Las Vegas mass shooting, or the Butler PA assassination attempt? How is it that it took years to release the manifesto in the Nashville school shooting, but the DoJ can immediately release the desires of the 2nd Trump assassin in days?
You get criticized because your actions are not transparent and obvious which makes it look Iike you are intentionally hiding things. From this, it is inferred that you are hiding guilt.
A computer glitch? Did they say a computer glitch has affected the ballots? More misinformation, I'd say. Must be because I'm told this, every day, that that cannot happen.
Too soon.
How does that follow? We have no information suggesting these people skirted the law or that they are not entitled to vote in federal elections. They should be required to prove citizenship, but right now, we have nothing to support a conclusion that they won’t be able to.
Scalia wrote that 2013 opinion. The GOP in DC have known for decades how the Dems steal votes and have done NOTHING to stop it. Nothing. Scalia even told them how to fix it.
Everything is going as foreseen… at least in Arizona. Now illegals know they can attempt to vote there and no legal repercussions may come to them. And here’s the best part for democrats, a dime from their political coffers was spent bringing about this apparent winfall.
*not a dime… sorry
It even gets better… Arizona serves as test lab for showing the rest of the country how to do the same thing. “Never let a crisis (manufactured or otherwise) go to waste.”
Missed the rest of the quote: “…a crisis is an opportunity to do things you thought you could not do before”
Their predicament was “an urgent, a dire situation,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said
…their predicament being they got caught and the media didn’t bury the story.
"Around the same time, Hobbs announced the computer issues at the division of motor vehicles that caused the problem had been quickly fixed."
"Computer issues" affecting voting? And it benefits Democrats? Say it ain't so!
You *really* want to fix computer problems? Stop using them in elections.
Adrian "Ad" Fontes?
Ad fontes is a Latin expression which means "[back] to the sources" (lit. "to the sources").
Fontes's web page has a picture of him on the Time magazine cover for the story "The Defenders: Inside the Fight to Save America's Elections," so no, this guy isn't going to trace anything "back to the sources."
I would like to see some evidence that they just happened to find this problem with less than 90 days to an election, vs. knowing about this for 6 months and waiting until less than 90 days to the election.
How about a paper ballot Amendment regarding nation elections?
Because having a staged phone call that is recorded and handed over to the WaPo sounds like writing a fake dossier and injecting it to media and law enforcement, i.e. a normal tactic now done by Democrats.
While Democracy is an article of faith invoked in dictatorial regimes, democracy has only been practiced in homogenous communities in a limited fashion.
"...the computer issues at the division of motor vehicles that caused the problem ..."
But they kept telling us that we were being paranoid about the DMV not being able to handle the registration of voters correctly. After all, the DMV is so efficient with everything else.
Remember when RFK jr said Trump needs to win in a landslide?
Tim, try using that logic with the clerk at the liquor store when you're a young person trying to buy alcohol and forgot your ID at home.
I'd be willing to bet that in government bureaucracies, when an employee screws up data entry due to bad training or not paying attention, it's considered a computer glitch.
Thumbs up. Voting integrity matters (VIM).
Complete Utter Bullshit. This isn't a CNC center picking up a rough casting of a camshaft for a V8 engine, positioning same and locking it in then doing a rough machining to finish hone while miced within thousandths of an inch sort of problem to solve.
It is, rather, a child's lemonade stand arithmetic kind of problem. Easy.
They planned to release the call before they started it and conveniently recorded it. What we really need to hear is the prior call when they were coming up with the story.
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