After years of hearing complaints from residents about erroneous information related to voters’ registration, Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez, has started to mail out new voter notification cards to all registered voters in the County. This mailing process does little to help the voters who were disenfranchised in Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election last Tuesday.
Approximately 495,000 voter notification cards were mailed out last week from Rodriguez’s office.
Arizona garnered headlines last week for the delay and disenfranchisement of thousands of voters due to sheer incompetence on every level. From county recorders’ offices to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, failures prevented voters from participating in the democratic process.
Because the Presidential Preference Election is closed, only those who belonged to a political party were allowed to vote. While some Independents bogged down the system by showing up to vote only to be turned away, other voters, who had every reason to believe that they were registered members of the Democrat, Republican, and Green Party were denied a ballot or forced to cast provisional ballots due to erroneous registrations.
For example, one Pima County Republican Party voter went to the polls only to discover that somehow, somewhere in the system they were registered as a Radical.
The voter in question had changed their registration from Democrat to Republican in 2010. When the voter received their notification card in the mail it read “RAD.” The voter discovered that RAD stood for Radical. The voter then took steps to change the party affiliation. Later when the voter checked the Secretary of State’s website just prior to this Presidential Preference Election, the party affiliation read “Other.” As a result, the voter was forced to cast a provisional ballot. Despite making tremendous efforts to ensure that they were registered as a member of the Republican Party, the voter received a new notification card from the Pima County Recorder’s Office last week that read “RAD.”
That voter’s experience is not unusual. Too many eligible Arizona voters have discovered that they have been erroneously registered when registering through MVD.
According to the press release from the Pima County Recorder’s Office, voters with “any questions with any other information printed on their card they should call the Pima County Recorder’s Office at 520-724-4330.” Voters who do make that call will likely find a hostile Pima County employee who will assure them that the mistakes was the voter’s and not a bureaucrat’s.
Today, due to the massive missteps during the Presidential Preference Election last Tuesday, the Chair of the Arizona House Elections Committee, Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita has summoned Secretary of State Michele Reagan and Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell to testify on the matter.