People waiting in line to vote in Arlington, Virginia on November 4, 2008 (Image: Shutterstock)
Former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is sounding the alarm.
Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Richer said that if SB 1570 becomes law, it "would prove a significant disruption."
The law would require federal immigration officials to be on hand at every polling location in the state during the 2026 election. It would also require local officials to arrange for ICE agents to be present, reported AZFamily.com. It does promise that federal officials "shall not interfere with the casting or depositing of ballots except as otherwise authorized by law" and cannot "question, detain or arrest a voter solely for the purpose of determining voter eligibility, except as otherwise allowed under state or federal law."
"And it doesn't even really make sense because ICE, as I understand it, is about naturalization, about whether or not you're a United States citizen, but you don't have to bring proof of citizenship when you show up to vote," said Richer.
Republicans at the federal level have attempted to change that, too, however. The SAVE America Act, which stands for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act. It's a law that the Brennan Center for Justice has called “the most restrictive voting bill ever.”
The new successor claimed that they reviewed 60,000 registered voters in Arizona and found 137 were not U.S. citizens and 60 had voted in previous elections.
Richer said it's important to understand the context. Maricopa County has about 2.6 million registered voters in it. So, he wanted to know more to understand what the new recorder was referencing.
"Every year, we would review our voter rolls, and we would make sure that there were no irregularities and we would forward any cases that deserve more investigation to the county attorney's office and to the attorney general," Richer said.
That has changed, however, he noted.
"Since I left office ... the federal government has unrolled its saved database that purports to allow states to upload their voter registration rolls to see if there are any non-citizens," he explained. "The problem with that, as reported by ProPublica in recent weeks, is that it returns quite a few false positives."
He said that while it can lead to further investigation, "registrants should not be taken off of the rolls simply because they are pinged by the database, and I trust that the county recorder's office under my successor will do further investigation on those voters."
CNN host Boris Sanchez noted that the federal government is also seeking driver's license information, partial Social Security numbers, and other data to connect to voter databases. Sanchez asked Richer what the federal government wanted with that data.
By and large, I think the federal government has sued, now, about 28 states. States are resisting because they feel that it violates both state law and federal law to give up their entire voter registration databases, which include personal identifying information like your Social Security number or your driver's license.
He noted that in all of those cases, so far, the federal government has lost.
"I don't think it's an appropriate request from the federal government. I am, however, sympathetic to wanting to do list maintenance. I'm sympathetic to wanting to make sure that non-citizens aren't participating in our elections," Richer added.
Richer commented that, given the governor of Arizona is the former secretary of state, she is well-informed on voting rights. If SB 1570 passes the legislature, he doesn't believe she will sign it. It's unclear whether there are the votes to override such a veto.