Tens of thousands of Arizonans, maybe more, have been voting in state and local elections without first proving that they are U.S. citizens.
Somebody get the smelling salts. I think Elon Musk just fainted .
Turns out, 97,000 people are on Arizona’s voter rolls, deemed eligible to vote in state, legislative and city elections even though they haven’t provided documented proof of their U.S. citizenship, as required by state law.
Many of them, by the way, are … wait for it … Republicans. People who have been voting in our elections for years.
MVD didn’t ask for proof of citizenship
Before the election integrity hounds spin themselves up, there is no dastardly conspiracy here. No evidence that 97,000 sneaky non-citizens have been hijacking our elections.
These are voters who were miscategorized on the rolls because of a coding glitch in the state’s motor vehicle database, a glitch that dates back two decades.
The problem lies with people who got a regular Arizona driver’s license before October 1996, when the state began requiring proof of citizenship. Then they got a replacement license — either because they’d lost their original one or needed to update an address — after 2004.