Voter fraud in Arizona: What it looks like, how often it happens and how it is fought
President Donald Trump has called voter fraud an issue that may have swayed the outcome of the 2016 popular vote.
Without proof, he claimed that millions of people voted illegally in the election. Through an executive order in May, he created a Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
The commission likely could replicate work done in Arizona since 2008.
Since that year, state officials have examined hundreds of thousands of cases where someone might have voted twice in an election. After scrutinizing those cases, 30 were sent to the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
Twenty resulted in convictions.
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The path to those convictions started with the work of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, now run by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
The program compares voter-roll data state to state. It has a dual purpose: to clean the voter rolls and identify people who are registered in multiple states (likely because they moved), and to find voter fraud.
Kobach also is the vice chairman of Trump's commission.
Crosscheck finds only cases of double voting; other types of voter fraud include false registrations, forgery and perjury.
But the number of other kinds of voter-fraud cases is "far less than the double-voting cases," said Mia Garcia, spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
What are these cases?
Here are some details of the 30 referrals received by the Attorney General's Office:
- Twenty resulted in convictions.
- Of the others, six cases were turned down, one was dismissed, one conviction was overturned on appeal and two are still active.
- Eleven convictions were in Maricopa County.
- The nine others occurred in Pinal, Santa Cruz, Pima, Mohave, La Paz and Graham counties.
- The average fine for those convicted was a little more than $5,000. Fines ranged from $2,500 to $13,800.
- Most of those convicted received 100 hours of community service, although in two cases, the defendants were ordered to perform 200 and 300 hours.
- A few defendants had their records expunged after paying the court and completing their hours.
Several of these individuals claimed in court documents that they did not intentionally vote twice. Many said they were extraordinarily busy or stressed around the time, and as a result, they don’t really recall doing it.
Accidental double voting is probably the most common type of voter fraud that occurs, said David Wells, senior political-science lecturer at Arizona State University.
Intentional voter fraud is "pretty much nonexistent," Wells said, and not something that sways elections.
"It's just a fraudulent allegation of massive voter fraud that Donald Trump put forward," Wells said. "The basis of this commission is fraudulent."
While he didn't agree with Trump's commission or his allegations, Wells said Crosscheck and cleaning voter rolls is important and worthwhile.
On this point, Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, agrees. The state representative has taken a strong stance on voter-fraud prevention through some of her proposed legislation.
But when asked if she agreed with the basis for Trump's commission or whether his allegations of voter fraud were legitimate, Ugenti-Rita didn't directly answer.
"I think that protecting something that’s so fundamental to democracy, like fair elections, is essential," she said.
Details of specific cases
In one Arizona case that resulted in a conviction, defendant Edward T. Nichols claimed he voted twice by absentee ballot on accident, though some evidence collected by the state contradicts his story.
After retiring from the U.S. Army in 2008, he returned to Arizona from Alaska during the summertime and was busy with finding a job, enrolling his children in school and other tasks.
On top of that — and fighting with the Veterans Association for benefits — he and his wife were not getting along, he said. They started talking about a divorce.
It was sometime during this period that he said he voted for Mitt Romney twice: once via absentee ballot in Alaska, where he had lived for a two-year deployment, and once via absentee ballot in Arizona.
Nichols ultimately accepted a plea deal and was convicted of voter fraud.
He said he could barely scrape together the money to pay his fines and fees, which totaled about $4,600 and were due at sentencing, according to Brnovich’s office. He also had to complete 100 hours of community service, which he did in between working overtime to afford to pay the court and taking care of his children.
Another man who accepted a plea deal, John David Hamrick, declined to talk about the incident to a reporter because it upset him too much, his lawyer said.
Court documents show that he said he was caring for his sick wife when he voted twice in the 2012 election, both in Maricopa County and in Summit County, Colorado. He attributes the mistake to the “blur” of life and took a polygraph test to try to prove to the court that it was an honest mistake. His plea deal stipulated a $4,575 fine and 100 hours of community service.
In another incident, several family members and close friends submitted letters to the court to testify on behalf of Rodney Paul Jones, whose voter fraud they said was out of character. Jones' lawyer said he would not want to talk to a reporter about the incident.
Court documents show he voted in both Maricopa County and El Paso County, Colorado, in 2008.
“This legal matter has taken its toll on both Rodney and his family,” his wife wrote in a letter. “It was a mistake. This happened during a very stressful time.”
He was commuting from Colorado to Arizona frequently to help with family matters, the letter said, and was under a lot of pressure.
Another letter from Jones’ son echoes his wife’s sentiments.
“You see, my father tends to burn the candle at both ends, which is to say that he doesn’t know when to slow down,” the son wrote, adding that led to "mental errors in judgement.”
In some cases where individuals claimed they acted by accident, evidence gathered by the state contradicts their stories.
In Nichols’ case, the state’s investigation showed he applied for his Alaska absentee mail ballot three months after he registered to vote in Pinal County. His ballots were mailed within two weeks of each other.
When asked about this, he said “that doesn’t make any sense,” and that he's “not the most political guy” and wouldn’t have much motivation to vote twice intentionally.
Another man, Tom Lee West, was convicted of voting twice in the 2012 election, both in Maricopa County and Costilla County, Colorado.
Court documents say West said he realized “the importance of his civic duty to vote and only registered in Colorado to ensure he would not miss his opportunity to vote based upon his hectic schedule.”
West said he completed his Arizona ballot first and forgot about it when voting absentee in Colorado. However, records show that he signed his Arizona and Colorado ballots on the same day.
West's lawyer did not respond to The Arizona Republic's request for comment or indicate whether West would be willing to take questions.
A few individuals convicted of voter fraud also did those actions in more than one election, court documents show.
Regina Kay Beaupre voted in both Arizona and Michigan in 2010 and 2012, and was convicted of fraud. The phone number listed for her in court documents was disconnected.
Another woman, Mary Patricia Gregerson, voted in Arizona and Iowa continuously from 2000 to 2012, according to court documents. In court records, she contended that because she paid a significant amount of taxes in both states she felt she should be able to vote in both.
Her attorney did not respond to emailed questions that were to be passed along to Gregerson.
How Crosscheck works
The Arizona Secretary of State's Office initiates the somewhat complex process of identifying double votes. These are the steps:
- Arizona sends voter data, including an individual's first and last name and partial Social Security number, to the Crosscheck program in Kansas. According to Samantha Poetter, director of public information for Kobach, 27 other states last year did the same and 30 are signed up to share this information in coming years.
- A computer program compares states’ data.
- Matches are sent to respective secretaries of state offices.
- At the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, signature comparisons begin. If it appears an individual submitted two ballots, staff members manually compare signatures on the ballots and determine whether to investigate further.
- The narrowed pool of matches are sent to counties, which perform their own review. They report their findings to the secretary of state.
- If there's a hard match, meaning the first and last name, birth date, Social Security number and signature match on two ballots, the case is referred to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for further review.
“It's a fairly laborious process that does take a great deal of time,” said Matt Roberts, spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan. “And that's why we in the past have announced cases of double voting long after the election occurred.”
In 2016, the office received 79,331 matches, which are classified into four types by how strong they are, with 1 being the strongest. Roberts said the number of matches is fairly consistent year after year.
- Type 1: An individual's name, date of birth and partial Social Security number are the same in both records. In 2016, a majority of the matches (65,521) were Type 1.
- Type 2 and 3: One state doesn’t have a Social Security number.
- Type 4: Everything is the same in both records except the Social Security number.
How is Crosscheck different?
Most states rejected the Trump commission’s initial request for data in some form, though many share similar data with Crosscheck.
Many cited privacy concerns after the commission said the data would be made public.
Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan initially released a statement June 30 saying she would only turn over data that would not violate state privacy laws. But after public outcry, she said she would completely deny the request.
The legality of the request still remains unclear. Several groups have brought lawsuits against the commission, so far to no avail.
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Kobach asked states for the voter data again on July 26, updating the request to say the information would be kept private.
Reagan still has not said whether she will release the information, but Roberts said it’s up to lawyers to decide whether anyone can refuse to provide this information now that Kobach has promised it will be kept private.
Whether any office can refuse a “perfectly legal public-records request” is something only legal counsel can determine, Roberts said.
The commission has asked all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., for names, addresses, dates of birth, last four digits of Social Security numbers, voter history from 2006 onward and party registrations, among other information.
In an email, Poetter said the information collected by Crosscheck differs in some ways from the data requested by the commission.
Crosscheck does not ask for several fields that Trump’s commission requested, she said, including party affiliation, voter history from 2006 on, canceled status, information on felony convictions, information on registration in other states, military status and overseas citizen status.
Despite the similarities in many data fields of what Crosscheck collects and what the commission is requesting, Reagan’s office has no problem sharing the Crosscheck data because it’s kept private.
Confidential information, such as partial Social Security numbers, is redacted if shared with the public, Roberts said.
Will Trump's commission find something new?
Trump's voting commission has caused a backlash — not just from secretaries of state, but also from non-profit advocacy groups, political-science experts, and former and current government employees, among others.
Many have expressed fears that instead of preventing voter fraud, the commission will perpetuate voter suppression. Kobach has received criticism for imposing what some see as restrictive voting practices in Kansas.
Kobach and his office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview from The Arizona Republic over several weeks.
Some of these voting practices are standard in Arizona, such as requiring proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. In Arizona and Kansas, a voter must also show ID at the polls.
Trump claimed a large portion of those who voted illegally were people who were not in the country legally.
With both stringent voter laws and the Crosscheck program, Arizona has not found thousands, hundreds or even dozens of cases of voter fraud.
Instead, the state has convicted 20 people of double voting, and even fewer of other kinds of voter fraud.
One big question remains: When Trump's commission releases its findings, what more might emerge about voting problems in Arizona?
"I think the commission's intent to improve electoral integrity could take a great number of directions," Roberts said.
"Perhaps maybe the commission could take a look at some of the things we're doing and suggest that other states do them as well."
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