The judge ordered the state to release the original list of the estimated 98,000 voters affected by the coding flaw by Nov. 4.
MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office has been ordered by a judge to release a list of thousands of voters affected by a “glitch” in the state’s registration system.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Thursday gave the commissioner until Nov. 4 to release the original list of an estimated 98,000 voters affected by a coding flaw in the state database.
Earlier this year, state officials discovered that Arizona’s record-keeping system for verifying the citizenship of voters had been flawed for the past two decades. This problem affected a specific group of residents who were issued a driver’s license before October 1996 and who registered to vote after February 2004.
The Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona filed a public records request last month seeking a complete list of voters affected by the accident. The Secretary of State said the request could not be completed before Election Day, citing concerns about voter safety and roll accuracy.
Justice Scott Blaney ruled that Chief Justice Adrian Fontes found “there was not a preponderance of the evidence that the production of the records would violate the right to privacy or confidentiality.”
Additionally, the comptroller’s office was ordered by a judge to release datasets and communications generated in connection with the list of affected voters.
The judge ordered the plaintiffs not to contact any of the affected voters and not to release the affected voters’ personal information to any other third party until November 6th.
The Arizona Supreme Court previously ruled that voters affected by registration issues could still cast a full ballot in the 2024 election.
“The vast majority of voters are U.S. citizens and can provide documentation of their citizenship,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said.
Anyone who registers to vote in Arizona must swear under penalty of perjury that they are a U.S. citizen.
RELATED: Number of Arizonans affected by coding glitch more than doubles; The Secretary of State’s investigation continues with 218,000 people identified.
RELATED: More than double the number of Arizona voters affected by data outage to 218,000, but the right to vote will not be lost, Secretary of State Fontes says
*Editor’s note: The video above is from a previous broadcast. *
