Governor Katie Hobbs Statement on Administrative Issue With AVID and Its Interface With MVD

Phoenix, AZ - Governor Katie Hobbs released the following statement after reports of an administrative issue with AVID's interface with MVD:

"After Recorder Richer brought an erroneous voter registration record to my attention, my team identified and fixed an administrative error that originated in 2004, and affects longtime residents who received a driver's license before 1996. As soon as I became aware of the problem, I directed MVD to work with the SOS to aggressively develop and implement a solution and, out of an abundance of caution, will be implementing an independent audit to ensure that MVD systems are functioning as necessary to support voter registration. I'm proud of MVD for their hard work implementing a fix to this problem in record time."

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer added the following:

"I appreciate Governor Hobbs and the MVD for their work to ensure my team and all Arizona recorders are receiving reliable and up-to-date information. After my team noticed the MVD database inconsistencies, the Governor and MVD acted swiftly to fix the statewide issue and maintain thorough communication."

BACKGROUND on the administrative error:

Beginning December 8, 2004, Arizona law requires registrants to provide documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) to register as "full-ballot voters," eligible to vote in federal, state, and local races. Those who do not provide DPOC may only be registered as "federal-only voters," eligible to vote in only federal races. The law also specifies a driver's license issued after October 1, 1996 can be valid DPOC. When a county enters a voter's registration application into the statewide voter registration database (AVID), AVID is programmed to query and pull driver's license records from the MVD database as DPOC for voter registration processing. The query returns data on, among other things, the license issuance date and alerts the county when the license is issued on or before 10/1/1996.

MVD issues duplicate licenses as a replacement to an existing, active credential. A duplicate is not a renewal. If an applicant was issued a license on or before 10/1/1996 but got a duplicate license after 10/1/1996, the operative issuance date in that person's MVD record is updated to the date the duplicate was issued. The AVID system was programmed to query the duplicate issuance date and would not alert the county that the license was originally issued before 10/1/1996.

As soon as the administrative error was brought to Governor Hobbs' attention on September 7, she ordered MVD to work with the Secretary of State's office to address the AVID interface's programming error. The corrections have since been developed by MVD, and the administrative error will be corrected pending final action by the Secretary of State.

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