The Arizona Supreme Court said Friday that nearly 100,000 voters stuck in limbo following a citizenship tracking error will be allowed to vote a full ballot in November.
The decision temporarily resolves a quandary that could have disenfranchised the group and swayed down-ballot races across the state.
The order comes days after election officials engaged in an emergency lawsuit to determine how to handle voters whose eligibility was unexpectedly put into question by a coding glitch in the state’s motor vehicle database that went undetected for years. Officials found earlier this month that some registered, full-ballot voters may not have provided citizenship documents and were miscategorized on the voter rolls.
Arizona uniquely requires its voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship to participate in state and local races. But the court said the issue was discovered too close to the November election to make changes to voters’ eligibility under existing legal precedent.
Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer also noted that the affected voters had previously been registered to vote a full ballot and that election officials did not suggest that they had any reason to believe the impacted voters were not citizens.