Voters caught by Arizona MVD registration glitch won’t have CD7 ballots disqualified

About 23,000 voters in Pima County who had their registrations caught up in a paperwork glitch between the Motor Vehicle Division and election offices have yet to file documented proof of citizenship. About 8,500 voters here already have updated their records. All of the affected Arizona voters have been on the rolls for decades, and their ballots will still be counted in the upcoming elections, officials clarified after the Tucson Sentinel dug into the issue.

On the day of the special Congressional District 7 special primary election, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told reporters that voters who had received a notice to provide proof of citizenship had until 7 p.m. to deliver the necessary documents to their county recorder.

“If you have received notification that you still need to provide that documented proof of citizenship and you have tried to vote in this election, you have until 7p.m. tonight – that is when polls close – to go to your county recorder’s office, whether it’s here in Tucson for the Pima County Recorder’s Office or any of the other counties to make that happen,” Fontes said in Tucson on July 15.

But after the primary, Fontes’ office said voters who did not provide their proof of citizenship were not in danger of having their ballots disqualified.

JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office, said Fontes did not mean to imply that ballots cast by voters who had been asked to provide documentary proof of citizenship could have their votes tossed out if they did not provide proof of citizenship.

“That’s not what the secretary said,” Martin told the Sentinel. “The Secretary of State’s Office is not advising any kind of disqualification of ballots if people have not presented documentary proof of citizenship.”

Martin said Fontes was “citing a compliance deadline for the election. Late compliance would not result in a disqualification in this case.”

Last year, state election officials discovered that about 200,000 longtime Arizonans did not have documentary proof of citizenship on file. The affected voters had been caught up in a voter-registration glitch if they registered to vote via the state’s Motor Vehicle Division’s voter-registration service (which is rebranding from “Service Arizona” to “AZ MVD Now”).

The affected voters had received their driver’s licenses before Oct. 1, 1996, when a state law began requiring Arizonans to prove legal residency to get a license, according to election officials. But when drivers who had received their license before that date renewed their licenses, the system automatically recorded that they had shown documents proving their citizenship even if they had not.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in September 2024 that the affected voters should be allowed to cast ballots in the November presidential election.

In January, the Secretary of State’s Office sent the list of affected voters to county recorders across the state.

In Pima County, nearly 32,000 voters were caught up in the paperwork glitch, according to County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly. Her staff investigated the voter records to see if they could confirm citizenship of the voters and if not, the office sent letters asking them to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or a passport.

Pima voters can check the status of their registration at the Recorder’s Office online voter dashboard.

Roughly 8,500 of those voters have resolved the issue and roughly 23,000 have yet to update their records, according to Cázares-Kelly.

About 12,000 of the Pima voters who still need to establish proof of citizenship live in Congressional District 7.

“No Pima County voters in the Congressional District 7 special primary election were affected by the Motor Vehicle Division’s documentary proof of citizenship issue,” Cázares-Kelly said.

Cázares-Kelly said she did not intend to disqualify any ballots over the issue unless she is legally compelled to do so.

“No changes will be made to voter records unless a court ruling or other legal decision is made between now and the general election,” she said.

The special congressional election was made necessary following the March death of longtime U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva. His daughter, Adelita Grijalva, won the Democratic primary, while Daniel Butierez won the GOP primary.

Grijalva and Butierez will face each other in a special Sept. 23 general election that will determine who holds the seat until after the November 2026 regular election.