Data encoding problems affecting Arizona voter rolls just before the 2024 presidential election could have been identified and fixed years ago, according to an ABC15 investigation.

Six weeks ago, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced that they had found a data encoding error in Arizona’s driver’s license database that allowed at least one non-citizen register to vote.

“It’s not a comfortable position to be in,” Fontes said on September 17.

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Because of data errors, about 218,000 people, 5 percent of all Arizona voters, may not have provided documentary proof of citizenship to register as required by Prop 200, which became law in 2004.

Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship to cast a full ballot, though people who don’t provide proof can sign an affidavit to vote only in federal races.

Several current and former election officials told the ABC15 Investigators they were not aware of any data encoding issues prior to September 2024.

“The fact that it didn’t come out sooner bothers me a little bit,” said state Sen. Ken Bennett, a Republican from Prescott who is also a former Arizona secretary of state.

“Nothing ever came up between 2009 and 2015 when I was secretary,” said Bennett, who said he communicated frequently with his election staff and the 15 county registrars. “It would have raised the same big red flag.”

After Bennett left office, the issue came to light at least once.

2016 The case of the non-citizen voter

In October 2016, ABC15 reported a non-citizen was able to register to vote in Maricopa County. At the time, Alan Faygenblat described his actions as an attempt to see “if the system really worked” in preventing voter fraud.

“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” he told ABC15 at the time.

Faygenblat was criminally charged with false voter registration and pleaded guilty in February 2017.

According to court records, Faygenblat was an Israeli citizen who was in the United States legally, but he falsely checked a box saying he was a citizen on the Service Arizona website. Received a voter registration card in the mail.

“We have all these politicians,” Faygenblat said. “They’ve been in politics for many, many, many, many years and nobody realized it.”

In 2016, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office described a loophole that allowed Faygenblat to register.

“Anyone who obtained a driver’s license after 1996 had to prove their citizenship at the MVD. (The individual) had obtained his driver’s license in 1994, so he did not need to prove citizenship. However, for some reason after 1996 he had to be reissued a new license and was never scanned for citizenship at that time,” a reporter’s spokesperson told ABC15.

At the time recorder Helen Purcell dismissed the idea that this could lead to widespread fraud.

“I think we check it thoroughly enough, that’s not the case,” Purcell told ABC15.

Eight years later, the same loophole was discovered with a new non-citizen who registered to vote in Maricopa County.

Understanding data errors

This month, ABC15 asked representatives of the Division of Motor Vehicles, which manages the driver’s license database, why the agency hasn’t fixed the flaw since 2016.

In an email, an MVD spokesman said the 2016 registration “was allowed because of how the system has worked in the past.”

“MVD identified a decades-old policy that allowed licenses issued after 1996, including duplicates issued after 1996, to be accepted as proof of authorized presence for reinstatements and renewals,” he added. This policy was created in 1997 in response to a law from 1996. He also said that MVD has now “changed the system to ensure that election officials receive the necessary information for voter registration.”

The MVD policy was made years before the election law changed in 2004 under Proposition 200, which said driver’s licenses and IDs issued after October 1, 1996 could serve as proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time.

These two laws were not a perfect match, but election officials trusted that the MVD data would confirm whether someone had provided proof of citizenship and obtained their license or ID after 1996.

MVD now tells ABC15 that the data exchanged with the state voter database had the following issues:

• All pre-1996 driver’s license holders were also coded citizens, although some were not. MVD did not require proof of legal status before 1996.
• The MVD data did not necessarily show the date the original license was issued. The agency used the most recent license date, which could be the date a duplicate, renewal or reinstatement was created. This prevented a clear demarcation between pre- and post-1996 licensees.

The governor ordered an audit to review MVD policies and procedures. Auditors want to determine how and when these data errors started and provide solutions to prevent future problems.
Multiple electoral processes

ABC15 also reached out to three election attorneys who have worked for years on lawsuits related to Arizona’s proof of citizenship laws and their administration. No one had heard of large-scale data breaches until this year.

“We’ve had 20 years of Republican governors, Democrats and secretaries of state and county reporters all had a hand in this and no one caught it,” said attorney Kory Langhofer.

Each said their own legal cases and other investigations into voter rolls rarely found unauthorized voters.

“There was no evidence withheld or presented in either case that we have (that) a large number, or any number of non-citizens voting in our elections,” said ASU election law professor Patty Ferguson-Bohnee.

“Our joint expert for the plaintiff found that there were errors at times,” said Ernest Herrera, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “However, the federal district court found that the overall system was reliable.”

Next steps

The wrongly coded voters have not been named, despite a court challenge to publish a list.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that they will be able to vote as normal on November 5th.

Officials are still working on a plan to fix voter rolls after the election. There are preliminary discussions about requiring voters affected by the data error to provide proof of citizenship before voting in future elections if they wish to continue to cast a full ballot.

Got a story tip? You can contact ABC15 Senior Investigator Melissa by email at [email protected] or call 602-803-2506. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @Melissa Blasius or on Facebook.