{"id":16146,"date":"2025-04-08T05:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16146"},"modified":"2025-04-08T05:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:04:05","slug":"maricopa-county-board-of-supervisors-approves-settlement-in-lawsuit-over-non-citizens-voting-will-cooperate-with-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16146","title":{"rendered":"Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Approves Settlement in Lawsuit Over Non-Citizens Voting, Will Cooperate with Trump Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/08\/maricopa-county-board-of-supervisors-approves-settlement-in-lawsuit-over-non-citizens-voting-will-cooperate-with-trump-administration\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors agreed<\/a> on Thursday to settle a lawsuit<\/a> filed by America First Legal (AFL) against Maricopa County over failing to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. The lawsuit, which was also filed against other counties, asked the court to order county recorders to comply.<\/p>\n

The settlement will have Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap work with the Department of Homeland Security to verify the citizenship status of federal-only voters, who were given that status since they failed to provide documented proof of citizenship (DPOC) when they registered to vote. The four Republican supervisors voted in favor of the settlement, while lone Democrat Steve Gallardo voted no.<\/p>\n

Merissa Hamilton of The Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona (SCFA), the plaintiff, praised the \u201cmajor victory\u201d on X. \u201cThis step is also in alignment with @realDonaldTrump\u2019s election integrity executive order to ensure only legal citizens can vote in our elections,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cIt will also enfranchise citizen voters since once verified by DHS, they will be able to vote the full ballot rather than a Federal-only ballot. Under the previous Recorder, the list of voters who haven\u2019t proven citizenship grew by 41% in 15 months because he was prohibiting proper list maintenance with DHS resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udea8 MARICOPA COUNTY ELECTION INTEGRITY ALERT \u2013 MAJOR VICTORY\ud83e\udd73<\/p>\n

Yesterday, @maricopacounty<\/a> made a huge step forward thanks to the hard work by @RecordersOffice<\/a> @azjustinheap<\/a> and our Board of Supervisors in negotiating with @EZAZorg<\/a> C3 arm Strong Communities Foundation of AZ and\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/AKTm8TzIBY<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/NzopN5JaRx<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Merissa Hamilton \ud83d\uddf3 \u26fd \ud83d\uddfd\ud83d\udd25 (@merissahamilton) April 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a follow-up post, Hamilton added<\/a>, \u201cThis case originally started in July of 2024. It only took getting a new Recorder for the County to follow the law!\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice Chair Kate Brophy McGee explained the process in a press release<\/a>. \u201cWith today\u2019s vote, we are officially stepping away from the lawsuit to allow the Recorder to move forward with a settlement which we understand won\u2019t cost taxpayers any money,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is not a settlement in a traditional sense where damages are awarded, but simply an agreement for the Recorder to write a letter to DHS to get some clarification.\u201d<\/p>\n

The press release said Heap would not need to send any voters\u2019 names to DHS, \u201c instead, it simply requires him to write a letter to DHS to see if there\u2019s more information DHS would like from Maricopa County about federal-only voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supervisor Mark Stewart (pictured above) said during the meeting, \u201cI think we\u2019re just in a situation where we have to provide ID or some sort of verification for just about everything we do. If you want to open a bank account by beer, if you\u2019re 21 etc. It\u2019s just a common sense thought that federal-only ballot should require verification of ID.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, Stewart said<\/a>, \u201c\u201cOur constituents in Arizona and the nation want to know that only legal voters are permitted to cast ballots in Maricopa County, so what is there to hide?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Supervisor Lesko said during the meeting, \u201cI think this is a big win to determine if people that are voting are indeed citizens, as required by the Constitution. And I believe this is a great settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the press release, Lesko stated, \u201c\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to vote for this settlement on behalf of Maricopa County voters who care about election integrity. To me, the intent of the original lawsuit made sense: let\u2019s find out which of our federal-voters are citizens and which are not. If citizenship is confirmed, those voters could then vote a full ballot, rather than just a ballot with federal races, while any non-citizens would be barred from voting entirely, as the Constitution requires. I see no downside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit arose after AFL and local election attorney Jennifer Wright, representing SCFA, also known as EZAZ, demanded that counties remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. Richer refused to take any action, claiming that he was already in compliance.<\/p>\n

The complaint said 35,273<\/a> registered voters in Arizona had failed to provide proof of citizenship and were registered as federal-only voters as of April 2024, a number that continued to increase, according to a report from Maricopa County. The Arizona Legislature passed H.B. 2492<\/a> and H.B. 2243<\/a> in 2022, requiring stricter voter maintenance for federal-only voters, including removing foreign citizens from voter lists and conducting maintenance on a monthly basis.<\/p>\n

The courts have controversially interpreted federal law, the National Voting Registration Act, (NVRA) to allow those who do not provide DPOC when they register to vote to vote in federal races.<\/p>\n

A panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down<\/a> Arizona\u2019s two laws last month for allegedly violating the NVRA, but the decision is being appealed. Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, dissented. He said the laws shouldn\u2019t have been struck down for violating the NVRA \u201cbecause the Constitution doesn\u2019t grant Congress the power to regulate who may vote in presidential elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

An increasing number of illegal immigrants are expected<\/a> to vote for Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Rachel Alexander is a reporter at\u00a0The<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Arizona Sun Times<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0The Star News Network<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em>Follow Rachel on\u00a0<\/em>Twitter \/ X<\/em><\/a>. Email tips to\u00a0<\/em>rachel.r.alexander@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>.
\nImage \u201cMaricopa County Supervisor Mark Stewart\u201d by Maricopa County Supervisor Mark Stewart<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The post Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Approves Settlement in Lawsuit Over Non-Citizens Voting, Will Cooperate with Trump Administration<\/a> first appeared on The Star News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/08\/maricopa-county-board-of-supervisors-approves-settlement-in-lawsuit-over-non-citizens-voting-will-cooperate-with-trump-administration\/ The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors agreed on Thursday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":16148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16149,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16146\/revisions\/16149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}