Up to 6,000 Faulty Ballots Sent to Voters in Arizona

As many as 6,000 faulty ballots that only listed federal races were mailed to Arizona voters due to a “voter registration error.”

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who is running for governor against Republican Kari Lake, announced the error on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. Per the outlet:

When people register to vote in Arizona or update their registration, an election system queries driver’s license records to verify whether the person has proven their citizenship. Those who don’t have citizenship documentation on file are not eligible to vote in state elections and are registered as “federal only” voters.

Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for Hobbs, said the driver’s license query failed to properly verify the citizenship for some people, leading them to to be improperly registered as federal only voters. She did not provide a breakdown of their party affiliation or describe the characteristics that led to problems.

Hobbs said that a database issue was resolved, and voters can anticipate complete ballots soon. The Democrat, who has a history of expressing her disdain for Trump voters and called his base “neo-nazi [sic],” landed the national spotlight in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election. She rejected a request for an “independent analysis” of voting data from Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R).

“To be clear, there is no ‘current controversy’ regarding elections in Arizona, outside of theories floated by those seeking to undermine our democratic process for political gain,” said Hobbs.

Conversely, Lake has contended there were issues with the 2020 election and called for Hobbs to recuse herself from overseeing the 2022 election, considering she is on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate:

The Kari Lake for Arizona campaign is calling for the most partisan Secretary of State in the history of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, to step down from her duties in administering the 2020 election when Hobbs will be on the ballot as a candidate for governor.

This is in response to Hobbs’s history of irrational bias and disdain towards Republicans in addition to what election investigators have reported to the public about serious issues affecting tens-of-thousands of ballots and voters in the 2020 election Hobbs oversaw.

This latest error follows substantial issues during this Summer’s primary elections in Pinal County, including ballot shortages and tens of thousands of ballots that were sent to the wrong voters, according to a joint statement from Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Republican Party of Arizona Chairwoman Kelli Ward:

During Arizona’s primary elections, the RNC and Republican Party of Arizona’s poll observer program documented and reported multiple failures by Pinal County’s Elections Administrator, including 63,000 mail-in ballots delivered to the wrong voters and multiple Republican-heavy precinct locations running out of ballots. This is a comprehensive failure that disenfranchises Arizonans and exemplifies why Republican-led efforts for transparency at the ballot box are so important. Pinal County Elections Director David Frisk should resign immediately.

While Hobbs paints herself as a defender of election integrity, she simultaneously refuses to debate Lake. The Republican nominee, a former Fox 10 Phoenix anchor, blasted Hobbs as a “coward” at a press conference last week for bucking the debate “tradition” that has existed for “two decades” in the Grand Canyon State’s gubernatorial races.