For all those who believe Arizona’s elections are stolen … because, well, they just do … I give you Elon Musk, who on Tuesday insinuated to his 168.6 million followers that Arizona is a hotspot for illegal voters.
“Arizona clearly states that no proof of citizenship is required for federal elections,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Cue the gasps from coast to coast, as outraged MAGA warriors raised their pitchforks to protest the supposed plot by those crafty Arizona Democrats to pad the state's voting rolls with immigrants who are here illegally.
Naturally, Kari Lake was quick to agree.
“This is why they had to stop me,” she wrote on X. “My plan to shut down the human smuggling and their open borders policies would thwart their agenda to register illegal voters. They need the human smuggling to fill the voter rolls with new Democrat voters.”
Kari Lake’s “war room” even posted a helpful picture of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, writing, “These kinds of things happen when a former cartel lawyer is in charge of your state’s elections.”
And you wonder why so many Americans don’t trust our elections?
State elections aren't federal elections
Mr. Musk, let me help you out here.
It’s true, as you say, that Arizona doesn’t require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. In fact, no state does.
That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it would be illegal to do so. Instead, federal law says you need only certify, under penalty of perjury, that you are a citizen and thus eligible to vote in federal elections.
But then there are state elections.
In all, 49 states require no documented proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.
Can you guess which state does require you to prove you’re a citizen when you register to vote?
Cue Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer:
“Arizona is the ONLY state with ANY proof of citizenship requirement,” he wrote in reply.
That's why Arizona has 2 sets of ballots
But, of course, Richer has only 20,900 followers to Musk’s 168.6 million, so I’m guessing not much of America was reassured about voting in Arizona, a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election.
Here in the real world (as opposed to Muskland), Arizona has required proof of citizenship to register to vote in Arizona elections for nearly two decades, a law put into place by voters in 2004.
Because Arizona requires proof while federal law does not, we have two sets of ballots: the full ballot containing all races for those who have provided documents proving their citizenship and federal ballot that lists only races for president and Congress for those who have not.
We’re the only state that has a bifurcated ballot because we’re the only state that requires more than federal law in order to vote in state and local elections.
Make Elections Fair:Throws Team MAGA into a faint
As Votebeat’s Jen Fifield points out, Arizona has about 32,000 federal-only voters. A recent Votebeat analysis shows most of them are concentrated around college campuses, which can mean one of only two things:
- Either college campuses are hotbeds of undocumented immigrants plotting to cast illegal votes.
- Or college campuses have out-of-state students who likely left their citizenship papers back home.
If Elon Musk said it, it must be true?
And before you ask, ABC 15 has reported that 8,114 federal-only ballots were cast in Maricopa County in the 2020 election — 0.4% of the vote.
The breakdown was Joe Biden, 5,781, to Donald Trump’s 2,134.
Even if you buy into Musk’s insinuation that something nefarious is afoot in Arizona, Biden won Maricopa County by 45,109 votes. Statewide, he won by 10,457 votes.
Only don’t try to tell Musk’s millions of loyal followers that the conspiracy isn’t real. After all, they read it on X, so it must be true.
“This was their goal all along, to import a new voter base so they can keep power indefinitely,” one follower wrote, in response to Musk's revelation.
“This is the beginning of the end of American sovereignty,” wrote another.
“They told us the Great Replacement Theory was just another conspiracy theory?” yet another of the MAGA faithful offered.
“How did America get to this point?” one asked.
How, indeed.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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Elon Musk throws in with the Arizona election conspiracy crowd - The Arizona Republic
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