A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes will withhold the names of 218,000 voters who were improperly registered to vote, citing flaws in the state’s driver’s license database. The court ruled that it must be defended.

The conservative group that requested the voters’ names is run by one of former President Donald Trump’s senior legal aides and filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking the information.

The decades-old glitch, first discovered last month, incorrectly stated that some Arizonans who obtained driver’s licenses before 1996 had submitted proof of citizenship, a requirement for voter registration in the Grand Canyon State. It meant that he was labeled as

An error in a database used by the state Department of Motor Vehicles affects people with pre-1996 licenses who underwent the exchange process. They had been registered to vote for decades, but were not required to prove their citizenship because of “oversighted data coding” within the system, the Secretary of State’s Office said.

The agency said affected voters include 79,000 Republicans, 61,000 Democrats and 76,000 people listed as “other party.”

“This court sympathizes with the chief justice’s desire to delay this litigation and address the matter after the next election,” Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott A. Blaney said in his decision. “It is understandable that the Commissioner’s Office is busy during this election period, and so is our court. However, the court also found that the plaintiffs’ cases were not filed without the required documentary proof of citizenship, which is a statewide issue. It also noted the importance and public interest of requiring disclosure of the list of approximately 220,000 Arizona voters identified by the Secretary in the press release as registered voters.

Blaney noted that Arizona’s public records law supports disclosure, and the Secretary of State’s office is “responsible for overcoming the presumption in favor of disclosure.”

Because voters in 2004 approved a ballot measure requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration, Arizonans who cannot provide proof of citizenship in the state are only allowed to vote in federal elections.

Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. Federal-only voters in Arizona, like all voters in other states, sign an oath pledging that they are U.S. citizens.

Last month, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer asked the Arizona Supreme Court to order the county election administration to send federal-only ballots to affected voters (only 98,000 known at the time). After asking the authorities to order it, the High Court ruled that there was none in the state. A law that allows county recorders to unilaterally change a voter’s registration status.

However, he noted that state law allows challenges to an individual voter’s registration status, and county recorders must address such challenges to those voters under that law.

America First Legal, a conservative nonprofit led by Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to President Trump and an architect of anti-immigration policy, is suing Fontes’ office for the records.

Jennifer Wright, former head of America First Legal and the Arizona Attorney General’s election integrity division, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Arizona’s Strong Communities Foundation, a nonprofit led by conservative activist Melissa Hamilton. .

After news of the glitch broke, Hamilton’s group sought “a subset of the statewide voter registration database that includes only registered (active and inactive) voters,” which is part of the data glitch, according to the complaint. Requested records.

Days later, the Secretary of State’s Office said in response that the records “will be made available for inspection as soon as the law permits access.” However, it will not be accessible until the 2024 general election. ” Fontes’ office said that releasing that information now would “cause confusion, confusion, uncertainty and consternation among the public, all of which is avoidable and the record turnout is… “With the anticipated elections underway, we really have to avoid it.”

The group’s lawsuit originally asked for the records to be released before early voting began on Oct. 9.

There is no evidence that a significant number of affected voters are illegal immigrants who have lived in Arizona for decades. Data show that voting by non-citizens is extremely rare.

An in-person evidentiary hearing is scheduled for October 28, just eight days before the general election. Each side has 90 minutes to present their case.

Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered an independent audit of the Department of Motor Vehicles’ registration system in light of the findings.