Highlights
- Yavapai County Recorder Michelle Burchill identified 30 noncitizens on her county's voter roll, representing about 0.01% of total registered voters.
- Burchill confirmed citizenship for 193,114 voters — 99.8% of the county roll — using the federal SAVE system, but required extensive cross-checking before acting on any flags.
- Four of the 30 noncitizens removed from the rolls had previously cast ballots, and the process revealed a potential glitch in Arizona's voter registration system.
- SAVE remains in legal limbo after a federal judge blocked expanded use in June; a second judge later restored access for four states under a prior settlement.
Yavapai County Recorder Michelle Burchill confirmed citizenship for 193,114 registered voters and removed 30 noncitizens from her county's rolls after running the voter list through the federal SAVE system, but only after months of cross-checking that exposed both the tool's potential and its significant limitations.
Burchill, a Republican who has administered elections in the county for about six years, began the experiment earlier this year by running roughly 300 federal-only voters through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, a Department of Homeland Security database originally built to check immigrants' eligibility for public benefits. The Trump administration upgraded it in late 2024 to allow election officials to scan full voter lists for noncitizens.
The 30 noncitizens she ultimately identified represent about 0.01% of Yavapai County's total voters. She reached that number only after using other methods and databases to double-check the citizenship status of voters the SAVE system initially flagged. When SAVE returned 39 potential noncitizens from the full voter roll, Burchill tracked down citizenship documents for 28 of them. The other 11 were removed after the required notification and waiting period. Nine additional noncitizen voters were found through the broader process.
Before canceling any registration, Burchill sent formal notices requesting citizenship documents, gave voters 35 days to respond, and personally called, emailed, and mailed letters to those flagged, steps she said were necessary given the system's track record of false positives.
The tool also confirmed citizenship for 255 federal-only voters, allowing them to be upgraded to full-ballot status. A separate check of 6,781 voters affected by a longstanding state coding error turned up active voters flagged as deceased, suggesting more dead voters on county rolls than previously known.
The experiment surfaced a potential glitch in the Arizona Voter Information Database: several voters had their citizenship status change in motor vehicle records without any notification to election officials. Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, said officials were looking into the changes but noted her office "does not register voters, nor do we change voter information."
Burchill's Aug. 7 report concluded that SAVE, while flawed, "has been by far the most valuable" tool she used for voter roll maintenance, provided its data is vetted carefully.
Her approach contrasts with Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, who announced in February that his office had identified 137 potential noncitizens but did not publicly answer questions about whether he vetted SAVE's results before moving to change voter registration statuses. Prosecutors continue to investigate the voters Heap referred; no charges have been announced.
Nationally, the Department of Homeland Security reported as of June that states had run 60 million voter records through SAVE, with 24,000 flagged as potential noncitizens. Several jurisdictions, including counties in Texas and Missouri, later reinstated voters incorrectly flagged by the system.
SAVE's expanded use was blocked by a federal judge in June on privacy and voting-rights grounds. A second federal judge subsequently ordered access restored for Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana under an earlier settlement. Burchill said she believes the tool can still be valuable and that her use of it did not infringe on voter privacy, as the only information submitted was names, dates of birth, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers already on record in the system.
The Arizona Mirror and Votebeat have both covered Burchill's findings. Cronkite News reported separately on SAVE's legal limbo and its effect on Arizona voter citizenship checks.
Burchill's full report was submitted Aug. 7; no legislative or regulatory action on the questions she raised about the 90-day pre-election removal blackout period has been announced.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- azmirror.com retrieved 26/08/2026 17:22
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 26/08/2026 17:22. Every claim traces to a source.
