Any legal violations by the activists who received the data will be referred to prosecutors for prosecution, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said.
Arizona officials on Nov. 4 handed over a list of voters who have not provided proof of U.S. citizenship to activists after several court rulings against the state.
“We have complied with and are complying with a court directive to release specific voter records for 218,000 individuals as part of our ongoing legal process,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told a press conference. “This list has been turned over to the plaintiffs in the matter that was before the courts.”
A judge on Oct. 31 ordered Fontes to provide the list to the group, finding that Fontes and his expert witness had not provided evidence supporting allegations the group would misuse the voter data. The judge also noted the group has received voter information in the past and has not misused it.
The Arizona Court of Appeals on Monday upheld the ruling, saying that Fontes and the Arizona Department of State did not identify any legal or factual errors in the judge’s ruling.
“I tried to stop this,” Fontes told reporters. “I have fought as hard as I could to keep your names and your personal identifying information away from the folks who I don’t trust.”
He said that any legal violations by the activists who received the data would be referred to prosecutors for prosecution.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said in a Nov. 4 social media post that he has “authorized receipt of those names.”
Merissa Hamilton, an activist who leads the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona group, told The Epoch Times in an email on Tuesday that she has received all of the files.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott A. Blaney, who issued the October order, ruled that before Nov. 6, the Strong Communities Foundation may only distribute the information to Petersen, Arizona county recorders, Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, and members of the Arizona House and Senate Elections Committees.
Before releasing the information to any of those parties, the group must also obtain written confirmation from each recipient that they will not distribute the information to any other individuals or groups.
The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the voters in question can cast ballots in the Nov. 5 election.
Hamilton wrote on the social media platform X on Monday that, soon, the group “will be able to provide to the Recorders the list of impacted citizen voters to ensure these voters can vote!”
Lawyers for her group said that activists planned to share the information with all county recorders in Arizona so they could verify the citizenship of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship, as well as legislators whose request for the data was turned down by Fontes.
Fontes and other Arizona officials first disclosed the discovery of more than 97,000 voters without confirmation of citizenship in September. They later said they identified about 120,000 others who received driver’s licenses before 1996 when no proof of citizenship was required to obtain a license.