Maricopa County recorder restores 25 voters wrongly flagged as noncitizens, ending lawsuit

Arizona’s top election official and attorney general have dropped their lawsuit asking a judge to force Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap to reinstate the voting rights of 25 people who were falsely flagged as noncitizens by a federal database.

The resolution came after court-ordered mediation on Friday. 

At the heart of the matter is the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, or SAVE, a tool that has been overhauled by the Trump administration to look for instances of non-citizens registered to vote. It has been found to falsely flag U.S. citizens as non-citizens. 

Heap used the database and identified 207 voters he said were likely noncitizens, sending those voters’ information to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office earlier this year. Of those 207 flagged, 60 had cast ballots. 

Heap moved those voters to the “non eligible” category. That designation means that, unless those voters provide documented proof of citizenship before the next election, they will be unable to vote. 

However, a review of those 60 voters by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office found that only eight of them were actually noncitizens, and no more than three ever voted in the same election. The Attorney General’s Office made similar findings. 

Now, 25 of those 60 who had their voter registration canceled — but whose citizenship was verified by both MCAO and the AG’s Office — who were unable to vote in this year’s election have now had their voting rights restored. 

Both parties pointed fingers at each other Friday evening. 

“After successful mediation efforts, Recorder Heap will reinstate the voting status of citizens at issue in this case,” Mayes said in a statement posted to social media. “It should not have taken litigation to make Justin Heap follow the law — that is his duty and the duty of all election officials.”

Meanwhile, Heap said he had been attacked by Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for following Arizona law. 

“This entire dispute could have been resolved weeks ago with the very verification ultimately presented to the Court,” Heap said in a statement. “Our position never changed. We needed legally sufficient documentation of citizenship, we received it, and we immediately restored the voters. Our office fulfilled its duty to protect eligible voters while upholding Arizona law.”

Maricopa County Supervisor Tom Galvin, a Republican, slammed Heap for falsely accusing dozens of voters of being illegally registered and then only reinstating their registration after he was sued.

“Justin Heap is lying to YOU, again,” Galvin wrote on social media. “Back in *February* he declared these 25 US citizens as “non-citizens”, patted himself on the back… Today, Justin is spinning a sad 8-month episode’s ending.” 

In court on Friday morning, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered Heap, Mayes and Fontes to go to a mediation to try to settle the matter “outside of the court.” 

That mediation led to the proof of citizenship to be provided to Heap, who then reinstated the impacted voters. 

The Recorder’s Office said that all “the voters now have now been restored to active status, ballots have been issued to those on the Active Early Voting List (AEVL), and the Attorney General has agreed to dismiss her complaint.”