10 Nov 14th-Nov 20th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Sloppy Screwup County court wrongly listed people as felons, revoked voting rights. BY ZACH BUCHANAN I n early October, Kelly received her ballot in the mail. Her heart sank. “As soon as I saw that big yellow envelope,” she said, “I was like, ‘Oh, Lord.’” What depressed her was not the task of voting in the Nov. 5 election. Now in her early 50s, she has proudly performed that civic duty every election cycle. “I’m someone who, since I was 18, exercised my right to vote,” she said. This election was as important as any, and yet Kelly was not able to return her ballot this year. That’s because on Oct. 2, just days before her ballot arrived, Kelly received a letter from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. “We received informa- tion from the court system indicating that you have been convicted of a felony,” the notice read. According to Arizona law, “your voter registration has been cancelled,” it continued. “When I read it,” Kelly said, “it really got me down.” A felony conviction would indeed bar Kelly from voting, but she doesn’t have one. (She agreed to speak to Phoenix New Times on the condition of anonymity. “Kelly” is a pseudonym.) According to her sentencing order, she pled guilty to an undesignated offense, a category of offense created in 2022 when a criminal justice reform bill signed by former Gov. Doug Ducey went into effect. According to the law, undesignated offenses are treated as misdemeanors until the defendant completes probation, at which time the sentence officially becomes designated as a misdemeanor. However, undesignated offenses are treated like felo- nies for certain purposes — for example, Kelly is not allowed to own a gun — but the cancellation of one’s voting rights is not among them. When Kelly entered her plea and was given her sentence in September, she thought her six-month legal saga was over. Now, because of someone else’s error, she’s been disenfranchised. “I didn’t know if I should be like, ‘Well, here’s another negative thing happening from this situation,’” she said. “But then I was like, ‘No, why are they suspending my voting rights?’” Kelly is, unfortunately, not alone. New Times examined hundreds of court records, revealing a persistent record- keeping problem that the Maricopa County Superior Court now says it’s working to fix. In the course of that research, New Times identified at least one other person who lost the right to vote over a felony conviction they don’t really have. There could be many, many more. The errors, which are the result of a database issue with the Superior Court, led to an inaccurate report of people with felony convictions that the Maricopa County Clerk of Superior Court sends every month to the Arizona Secretary of State. By law, the agency must collaborate with county recorder’s offices to remove those people from the voter rolls. Through a public records request, New Times obtained the September edition of that report from the Clerk of Superior Court. Among the more than 1,300 entries, New Times found at least 32 people who had been convicted not of felonies but of undesignated offenses. None appeared to have prior felony convictions that would affect their right to vote. It’s unclear how many of those 32 residents were previously Database entry mistakes at the Maricopa County Superior Court have improperly labeled dozens of residents as felons, costing several their right to vote. (wildpixel/Getty Images) >> p 11 | NEWS |
