Massive voter registration dump in Arizona may lead to Election Day headaches

At the last minute, third-party groups submitted nearly 100,000 voter registration forms in Arizona's most populous county, creating headaches for both election workers and voters alike, a report from AZ Central says.

On the final day to register to vote in Arizona — which this year would have been October 7 — these groups dumped as many as 90,000 forms on the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, an "unprecedented" number, according to spokesperson Taylor Kinnerup.

'Places where there are more questions around eligibility — those places could potentially have longer lines because we know there will be more questions there.'

What's more, a sizeable portion of these forms — some 30,000 or 40,000 of them — were heavily damaged and could not be processed. Still others were registered under names such as "Donald Duck" and "Mickey Mouse."

Of the 50,000 that could be processed, many still had defects. Some had missing information, AZ Central reported. Others were dated weeks earlier, and Arizona law requires third parties to submit voter registration forms within five days of collecting them, Kinnerup claimed.

Registrants whose addresses could be ascertained were issued a notice to cure their registration information before the deadline of 7 p.m. on Election Day. Those who followed through and fixed the missing information should be able to vote normally on Tuesday.

"All of the preliminary work has been done in terms of processing these forms," Kinnerup added. "Anything left to do is on the onus of the voter."

Those with a valid ID whose registration form is still missing some information will likely be able to complete the registration at the polling station and cast a provisional ballot that will be counted if and when officials determine that they were eligible to vote.

Others whose forms were too badly damaged will also likely be able to cast a provisional ballot, but that ballot will not be counted unless they previously registered to vote and that registration remains active, AZ Central reported. The outlet did not clarify why such individuals would re-register to vote or require a provisional ballot if they have an active voter registration.

As of Friday, elections workers have already processed 4,800 provisional ballots, well above average, Elections Department spokesperson Jennifer Liewer claimed.

"It's certainly a much higher number than we've seen previously since moving to a vote center model."

Officials are also concerned that these problems and uncertainties will increase wait times at the polls even more on Tuesday. They had already warned Election Day voters to expect to wait at least an hour before casting a ballot.

"Places where there are higher provisionals, places where there are more questions around eligibility — those places could potentially have longer lines because we know there will be more questions there," Tammy Patrick, a former Maricopa County elections official who now works at the Election Center, told the outlet.

Despite going into great detail about potential fallout from tens of thousands of faulty voter registrations submitted at the 11th hour, AZ Central called out what it described as "election denialism," implying that voters who distrust the system are the problem rather than the system itself.

The outlet did not identify the third-party groups that had submitted the registrations.

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