Congressman John Gillette introduced two bills in Congress to address voter fraud in Arizona. House Bills 2404 and 2405 are co-sponsored by Representative Leo Biasiucci and Senator Sonny Borrelli.
“Over the summer, we started looking at the voter rolls for us and Sen. Borrelli,” Gillette said. “We put together a team of people in Mohave County to see what we could find.”
Gillette said a large number of people registered to vote in Mohave County were found to be ineligible registrants.
“We conducted 10 test cases and found that 8 out of 10 voter registration cards shipped out of state were sent to ineligible registrants. These are people who shouldn’t be voting, people who aren’t eligible to vote in Arizona,” Gillette said.
Gillette said he discovered incidents where individuals who did not physically live in Arizona were receiving voter ballots by mail.
“They bought land in Mohave County,” Gillette said. “They had never seen the property. They bought it online, it was all legal, and they owned a small piece of land in Mohave County. They lived in Arizona. You cannot register a vehicle in Arizona as a property owner. Therefore, when you register a vehicle, it goes to the Motor Voter Program and registers you as a voter. They are not eligible registrants. They do not live in Arizona. Their home base is in California, and although they are not eligible registrants, the system, the Motor Voter Program, and some of the previous coronavirus rules have eliminated the need for an in-person meeting. , it looks like voter registration is complete and there are now 100% legitimate.”
Additionally, Gillette mentioned another incident in which a man had a valid voter registration at someone else's home.
“This woman has now owned the house for seven years in a row and paid for it in cash,” Gillette said. “But this person was registered at her address in 2021. That person lives in Oklahoma. Their only connection to Kingman is that they were here for a short period of time on a construction project. He stayed there, his vehicle registration expired, and he re-registered it.”
Another issue Gillette pointed to is the large number of deceased people who are still on the voter rolls. Gillette said this happens when someone dies in another state, and neither the state nor the family reports the death to the county recorder.
“Nevada does not have a reporting requirement to Arizona, so if you die in Nevada and your family does not notify the recorder,” They don't notify the state of Arizona that they did it, no one knows, and they remain on the voter rolls for quite some time. ”
To fix these problems, Gillette proposed two House Bills, House Bills 2404 and 2405.
House Bill 2404 places limits on the voter registration cards that county recorders can send out of state.
“The county recorder shall not provide an initial voter registration card or a renewed voter registration card to a person whose mailing address is outside the state, except for: . Persons on active military service outside this state and their dependents, residents of this state, and persons not served by the United States Postal Service of this state,” the bill reads.
House Bill 2405 would authorize county recorders to grant inactive status to voter registrations if they determine that the registration is fraudulent.
“If a county recorder receives information that provides reasonable cause to believe that a person has fraudulently registered to vote or that the person's registration information is incorrect, the county recorder may place the person's voter registration information inactive. and may notify such person as otherwise provided by law,'' the bill reads.
Gillette said the bills are “cleanup” bills that will help give county recorders more tools to combat voter fraud.
“We gave recorders $5 million last year to clean up voter rolls, but we didn’t give them all the tools they needed to do that,” Gillette said, adding that these bills would help counties Voters emphasize that this is an effort to help organize the record staff.
