Yavapai County, Arizona, has completed a comprehensive audit of its voter registration rolls, marking a historic first for the state. Spearheaded by Yavapai County Recorder Michelle Burchill, a Republican, the review utilized a federal immigration database to cross-reference the citizenship status of every registered voter in the county.
The audit, which analyzed nearly 200,000 active and inactive voter records, identified a minuscule fraction of non-citizens on the rolls—approximately 0.016% of the county’s total registered voting population. Beyond identifying registrations slated for cancellation, the initiative served as a mechanism to expand full ballot access for hundreds of eligible American citizens who had previously been restricted to voting only in federal elections.
Chronology of the Audit Initiative
The pathway to the audit began in early 2024 as county election officials sought ways to verify voter eligibility amid heightened national and state-level scrutiny over voter roll maintenance.
- March 4, 2024: The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors held a pivotal meeting to debate the authorization of the audit. Recorder Michelle Burchill proposed using the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. The board voted 4–1 to approve the measure, with Vice Chairwoman Nikki Check, a Democrat representing District 3, cast as the sole dissenting vote.
- Spring and Summer 2024: Armed with board approval, the Recorder’s Office began the painstaking process of submitting voter data to the SAVE system. The office submitted names, active and inactive statuses, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers for the county’s entire registration list.
- July 21, 2024: Yavapai County held its primary election. According to Burchill, the critical phases of the database sweep and the preliminary identification of ineligible voters occurred before this primary.
- August 7, 2024: Recorder Michelle Burchill officially released the final, comprehensive report of the voter roll audit to the public, marking the first time an Arizona county had completed such an exhaustive database cross-reference.
Granular Analysis of the Audit Data
The scope of the audit was expansive, capturing 193,506 active and inactive registrations. Because voter rolls are dynamic—shifting constantly due to new registrations, relocations, and deaths—the total numbers fluctuated slightly over the course of the spring and summer investigation.
The audit’s findings can be categorized into four distinct groups: the general voter roll, voters affected by the state’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) data glitch, "federal-only" voters, and previously rejected applicants.
Yavapai County Voter Roll Audit (193,506 Total Registrations)
├── Non-Citizens Identified: 30 (0.016%)
│ └── Cast past ballots: 4
└── Federal-Only Voters Verified & Upgraded: 255The General Voter Roll and Non-Citizen Identification
Out of the 193,506 records audited, the SAVE database flagged 30 non-citizens, representing just 0.016% of the electorate.
- Of these 30 individuals, 26 had never participated in an election.
- Four individuals had cast ballots in previous elections prior to the July 21 primary. Three of these individuals voted historically within Yavapai County, while the fourth had previously cast a ballot in neighboring Maricopa County.
- Once identified, the registrations of the confirmed non-citizens were canceled following a mandatory 35-day notice period.
The MVD Glitch Cohort
A major impetus for the audit was a historical data-sharing glitch between the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) and the Secretary of State’s voter registration system. The glitch affected individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses prior to 1996, meaning the state lacked digitized documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) for them.
Yavapai County submitted 6,781 affected voters from this cohort to the SAVE database:
- 6,605 voters were successfully confirmed as U.S. citizens.
- 14 voters were identified as deceased.
- 136 voters returned "no records found" in the federal database.
- 1 voter was flagged as needing to provide a full Social Security number for verification.
- 10 voters were confirmed as non-citizens. Of these ten, one had cast a provisional ballot in a previous election.
Federal-Only Voters
Arizona operates a unique dual-track voting system. Under state law, voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering are registered as "federal-only" voters, restricting them to voting solely in congressional and presidential elections.
The Recorder’s Office submitted 299 active and inactive federal-only voters to the SAVE database:
- 255 voters had their U.S. citizenship successfully verified and were subsequently promoted to full-ballot status, granting them the right to vote in state, county, and local elections.
- 5 voters were identified as deceased.
- 38 voters returned "no records found."
- 1 voter was flagged as requiring a full Social Security number to complete verification.
Rejected State Registration Applicants
The audit also reviewed 335 applicants whose state voter registration forms had previously been rejected due to a lack of physical citizenship documentation. Through the SAVE system, the county successfully verified the citizenship of 316 of these applicants, clearing the way for their registrations to be approved.
The Remaining Unknown Status Group
Following the audit, 276 registered voters in Yavapai County still have an unknown citizenship status:
- 107 voters are "grandfathered" in because they registered to vote before the passage of Proposition 200 in 2004, which first established Arizona’s strict proof-of-citizenship requirements. State law does not permit retroactive removal or status changes for this group.
- 169 voters registered after 2004. Because federal database searches yielded incomplete results for this group, the Recorder’s Office plans to mail letters requesting physical citizenship documentation, mirroring the outreach process used for those affected by the statewide MVD glitch.
The SAVE Database: History, Legality, and Technical Limitations
The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program was established by the federal government in 1987. Originally, its primary mandate was to help federal, state, and local agencies determine the immigration status of individuals applying for public benefits, such as Medicaid, housing assistance, or food stamps. It is distinct from the legislative proposals currently circulating in Congress known as the SAVE Act.
The database’s utility for voter roll maintenance expanded under the Trump administration via Executive Orders 14159 and 14248. These directives allowed the database to pull and aggregate information from various federal agencies, enabling states and counties to conduct large-scale, automated citizenship verifications of registered voters.
Legal Challenges and Data Accuracy Concerns
The use of SAVE for voter registration maintenance has been highly controversial and legally contested. On June 22, 2024, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia—a Biden administration appointee—issued a ruling in League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Judge Sooknanan ruled that a recent 2025 overhaul of the SAVE database was unlawful, citing violations of the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In her ruling, Judge Sooknanan expressed deep concern over the accuracy of the database when applied to voter registration:
"States have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens."
The practical limitations of the database were evident during the Yavapai County audit itself. In an initial raw data run of 187,719 voters:
- 183,562 were confirmed as citizens.
- 1,155 were identified as deceased.
- 2,769 returned "no records found."
- 47 required full Social Security numbers.
- 39 were initially flagged by the automated system as non-citizens.
Upon manual review and secondary vetting by county staff, 28 of those 39 flagged individuals were confirmed to be legal U.S. citizens, leaving only 11 confirmed non-citizens in that specific subset. This discrepancy highlighted the necessity of rigorous human oversight to prevent the erroneous disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
Official Responses and Local Reaction
The completion of the audit drew distinct reactions from local officials, highlighting the ongoing debate over the balance between election security and voter access.
Yavapai County Recorder Michelle Burchill defended the decision to run the entire database, including inactive voters:
"We did all of this information, including inactive voters, which really was more expansive than we probably needed. But there’s always the possibility that someone who is inactive is going to give me a new address and reactivate. So we really wanted to say, ‘If we’re doing this, we’re doing everyone,’ so that I can say, ‘We have a fresh start moving forward.’"
Burchill noted that she did not initially set out to audit the entire registration roll. "There was no original scope," she said. "I wouldn’t say that I ever had specifically a plan to do the entire voter list, because in my opinion, back then, I thought my entire voter list was pretty good."
Regarding potential legal action against the identified non-citizens who had cast ballots, Burchill confirmed that the information has been referred to law enforcement. "It will be completely up to them to investigate and decide what charges, if any, are going to be moving forward," she said, adding that her office has not yet received updates from the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office or the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Yavapai County Board of Supervisors Chairman Brooks Compton, a Republican representing District 1, praised the initiative:
"I’m very happy with using the SAVE program. I’m glad we were the county that was able to use it. It was certainly beneficial and improved our voter rolls, and especially with getting the federal voters back on the rolls."
Implications for Arizona and National Election Administration
The results of Yavapai County’s audit carry significant implications for election administration, both within Arizona and across the United States.
First, the findings provide empirical data to a highly polarized national debate. Proponents of stricter voting laws often warn of widespread non-citizen registration. Conversely, voting rights advocates argue that such occurrences are virtually non-existent. The Yavapai County data supports a middle ground: while non-citizen registration does occur, its prevalence is extremely low (0.016%), and the number of instances where a non-citizen actually casts a ballot is lower still.
Second, the audit demonstrates that systematic database checks can serve a dual purpose. While the program successfully identified and removed ineligible registrations, its most numerically significant impact was the restoration of full voting rights to 255 "federal-only" voters and the verification of 316 previously rejected applicants. For these 571 eligible citizens, the audit removed administrative hurdles to democratic participation.
As other counties in Arizona and across the nation evaluate their voter list maintenance practices, Yavapai County’s initiative will likely serve as a primary case study. The audit proves that while federal databases like SAVE can clean voter rolls, they are not infallible. The high rate of initial false positives among flagged non-citizens underscores that database automation cannot replace manual verification by local election officials.
