The number of voters with unconfirmed citizenship documents has more than doubled in battleground Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — The number of voters in the battleground state of Arizona who are granted full access to the ballot without confirming their citizenship has more than doubled to 218,000, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said.

This number represents 5.3% of all registered voters. While the error doesn't change who is eligible to vote for president or Congress, that voter pool could influence close local and state races and hotly contested ballot measures Abortion and immigration.

Arizona is unique in that residents must prove their citizenship to participate in a full vote – a requirement that dates back to 2004. If they do not do so, but certify under penalty of perjury that they are citizens, they will only be allowed to vote in federal elections. Driver's licenses issued after 1996 are considered valid documented proof of citizenship, but the system error marked the original group of voters who held driver's licenses before 1996 as eligible to vote in state and local elections.

Fontes announced Monday that the number of misclassified voters increased by about 98,000 last month to around 218,000.

It's unclear how officials could have missed the additional bloc of voters after saying two weeks ago that a mistake between the state's voter registration database and the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) had been fixed.

Aaron Thacker, a spokesman for Fontes' office, said Tuesday that the solution introduced by MVD did not solve the problem.

The Arizona Department of Transportation, which oversees the MVD, said in an email that it had created a coding update in its system, but did not say when it was implemented.

Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda said the party that originally supported Fontes is now criticizing him for causing voters to lose “complete trust” in him.

“Now we're realizing that he wasn't as open with Arizonans as we would have hoped,” she told The Associated Press. “We find this worrying and will take additional measures in the coming days.

She did not provide any information about the additional measures.

In Arizona, a relatively small number of votes could tip the balance in the legislative race, where Republicans have a narrow majority in both chambers. This year, voters will also decide on the constitutional right to abortion and a measure to criminalize illegal entry into the state from Mexico.

Most recently, the Supreme Court of Arizona ruled Month that the original voters can cast their full vote in this year's election because they registered long ago and confirmed under penalty of perjury that they were citizens. The justices said voters were not responsible for the error and should not be disenfranchised so close to the Nov. 5 general election.

Fontes said the decision should also apply to the new group of voters, which is made up almost evenly of Democrats, Republicans and voters who are not registered with either of those parties.

In Oregon, 1,200 people did not present proof of citizenship when voting kicked from state voter rolls by officials.