Arizona election officials privately worried that having nearly 100,000 voters on the wrong voter list would “validate” concerns about the integrity of the state’s elections.

Arizona requires voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship in order to vote in statewide elections. Voters who do not provide such proof are registered as “federal-only” voters, meaning they can only cast a ballot in federal races. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer recently discovered what Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs described as an “erroneous voter registration record.”

The record was that of a noncitizen who was on the voter roll as a full-ballot voter, according to VoteBeat. While this noncitizen had a green card, all noncitizens are legally prohibited from voting in federal elections. Upon further inquiry, the state claims to have found approximately 97,000 voters who are listed as full-ballot voters despite having never provided the documentary proof of citizenship required to vote in statewide elections.

The Washington Post obtained audio from a 40-minute Sept. 10 phone call between Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, and Attorney General Kris Mayes. During the call, Hobbs reportedly warned that the situation was “dire” and “urgent” while Fontes worried they would be “beat” up “no matter what the hell we do.”

“When this goes public, it is going to have all of the conspiracy theorists in the globe — in the world — coming back to re-litigate the past three elections, at least in Arizona,” Hobbs reportedly said. “And it’s going to validate all of their theories about illegal voting in our elections, even though we all know that’s not true.”

But how does Hobbs know that these “theories” are “not true”?

It is unclear how many of the 97,000 voters are noncitizens (aside from the individual flagged by Richer’s office) and, if some of them are noncitizens, how many of these have voted over the past few years.

Hobbs reportedly even conceded that she is “sure that there’s a very small percentage of those voters that are not actually eligible.”

Concerns about ineligible noncitizens being on the voter rolls could have been rectified by asking the Department of Homeland Security to “expedite” reviewing the list of voters to see whether they are flagged, Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona Chairwoman Merissa Hamilton told The Federalist.

Hamilton said that doing so would have complied with part of a recent lawsuit filed by Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and resident Yvonne Cahill that alleges Arizona’s 15 election records have “failed to take the actions required by law to ensure that foreign citizens are removed from their voter rolls.” Richer allegedly refused to undertake list maintenance procedures.

“If Maricopa County, for example, had just complied with the letter that we sent them months ago, they would already have the infrastructure in place to resolve this issue of the 97,000 voters immediately today,” Hamilton stated.

Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona later asked the Arizona Supreme Court to require county recorders to “send full ballots to all Affected Voters on the early voting list but … order that all ballots returned by Affected Voters be segregated pending confirmation of the voter’s citizenship.”

The Arizona Supreme Court ultimately ruled the 97,000 voters could remain as “full-ballot” voters for the upcoming election.

“[W]e are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote. “Doing so is not authorized by state law and would violate principles of due process.”

Hobbs also expressed concern that voters would want to redo the 2020 and 2022 elections after it was discovered that at least one noncitizen ended up on the voter rolls.

“Can you imagine telling 67,000 Republicans they can’t vote on the abortion initiative,” Mayes asked, according to The Washington Post. “I mean, Katie, I understand your point about not politicizing this, but the reality is that if we let this happen, all of these elections are challengeable. They’re going to be calling for a new election.”

“They’re going to be calling for new 2020 and ’22 elections as well,” Hobbs reportedly said, adding that the state would be criticized by Republicans who will say, “‘Told you so, all these illegals are voting.’”

While the state has not clarified how many additional noncitizens were found on the state’s voter rolls — or how many, if any, have voted — Arizona is home to approximately 250,000 illegal immigrants, according to the Tucson Sentinel.

The state has also seen a spike in “federal-only” registrations — meaning these voters are not providing proof of citizenship but are still being permitted to register to vote in federal elections. Approximately 1,700 people voted during the 2018 midterms using a “federal-only” ballot. But two years later that number jumped to more than 11,600 individuals. President Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes.

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2