YAVAPAI COUNTY, AZ — In a landmark initiative aimed at refining the integrity of local voter rolls while simultaneously expanding ballot access, Yavapai County Recorder Michelle Burchill (R) has completed a comprehensive audit of the county’s voter registration database. Utilizing the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the audit reviewed the citizenship status of all 193,506 active and inactive registered voters in the county.
The investigation, which concluded in late summer, identified 30 confirmed non-citizens on the voter rolls—amounting to approximately 0.016% of the county’s total registered electorate. Of those 30 individuals, four were found to have cast ballots in previous elections. The audit also successfully verified the citizenship of hundreds of eligible residents, upgrading their registration status to grant them full voting access ahead of upcoming elections.
Main Facts of the Yavapai County Voter Roll Audit
The primary objective of the audit was to clean Yavapai County’s voter database and resolve long-standing documentation discrepancies. By cross-referencing voter registration data, including the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, with the DHS SAVE database, the Recorder’s Office conducted a granular review of the electorate.
Key findings from the completed audit include:
- Total Registrations Audited: 193,506 active and inactive voters.
- Non-Citizens Identified: 30 individuals (0.016% of the total database) were confirmed as non-citizens and subsequently had their registrations canceled.
- Voting History: Of the 30 canceled registrations, four individuals had cast ballots in past elections. Three voted within Yavapai County, while one had previously voted in Maricopa County.
- Ballot Access Expansion: The audit verified the citizenship of 255 "federal-only" voters, promoting them to full ballot access, and resolved registration blocks for 316 individuals whose state registration forms had previously been rejected due to lack of documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC).
- Referrals for Investigation: The files of the 10 non-citizens identified through the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) glitch cohort were forwarded to the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for potential prosecution.
Chronology of the Audit
The implementation of the SAVE database audit followed a structured timeline marked by local political debate and shifting federal legal landscapes:
- March 4: The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors voted 4–1 to authorize Recorder Michelle Burchill to utilize the federal SAVE database. The motion passed with support from the Republican majority, while Vice Chairwoman Nikki Check (D-District 3) cast the dissenting vote.
- Spring and Summer: The Yavapai County Recorder’s Office systematically compiled and submitted voter registration batches to the DHS SAVE system, cross-referencing names, dates of birth, and Social Security digits.
- June 22: In a major legal development, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security that a 2025 federal overhaul of the SAVE database was unlawful. Despite the ruling, Yavapai County proceeded with its local review, utilizing its authorized access to verify its database.
- July 21: Yavapai County conducted its primary election while the final stages of the database cleanup were underway.
- August 7: Recorder Michelle Burchill officially released the comprehensive findings of the voter roll audit to the public.
Supporting Data: Detailed Breakdown of Audit Cohorts
To manage the vast scale of the audit, the Yavapai County Recorder’s Office divided the database into distinct target groups, addressing specific administrative and systemic issues.
1. The General Voter Roll Review
The largest undertaking involved submitting the county’s entire active and inactive voter rolls to the SAVE system.
- Initial Query Results: In an initial batch of 187,719 voters, the database confirmed 183,562 as U.S. citizens.
- Deceased and Missing Records: The system flagged 1,155 registered voters as deceased and returned "no records found" for 2,769 individuals.
- Database Limitations: The SAVE database initially flagged 39 voters as non-citizens. However, subsequent manual vetting by the Recorder’s Office revealed that 28 of those individuals were actually citizens, leaving 11 confirmed non-citizens. This discrepancy highlighted the necessity of human oversight when using automated federal databases.
2. The MVD Glitch Cohort
The audit targeted voters affected by a historic Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) data system error. The glitch involved individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses prior to 1996 and had not yet provided physical proof of citizenship to election officials, despite being eligible to vote.
- Total Submitted: 6,781 voters.
- Confirmed Citizens: 6,605 individuals.
- Deceased: 14 individuals.
- No Records Found: 136 individuals.
- Action Required: One voter was flagged as needing to provide a full Social Security number.
- Non-Citizens Identified: 10 individuals. One of these 10 had cast a provisional ballot in a past election.
- Outcome: The registrations of the 10 non-citizens were canceled following a statutory 35-day notification period, and their cases were referred to state and county prosecutors.
3. Federal-Only Voters and Rejected Applications
Arizona law requires documentary proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections. Those who register using the federal form without providing such proof are restricted to voting only in federal races (President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House).
- Federal-Only Cohort: 299 active and inactive federal-only voters were submitted to SAVE.
- Upgrades to Full Access: 255 of these voters had their citizenship verified and were promoted to full ballot access.
- Other Dispositions: Five were identified as deceased, 38 returned no federal records, and one required a full Social Security number.
- Rejected State Applications: The office submitted 335 applications that had been rejected due to missing citizenship documentation. The SAVE database verified citizenship for 316 of these applicants, allowing their registrations to be approved.
4. The Grandfathered and Unresolved Group
Following the audit, 276 registered voters in Yavapai County remain with an unknown citizenship status.
- Pre-Proposition 200 (Grandfathered): 107 voters registered before the passage of Arizona’s Proposition 200 in 2004, which mandated proof of citizenship. By law, these voters are grandfathered in and cannot be forced to provide documentation retroactively.
- Post-Proposition 200: 169 voters registered after 2004 but still lack verified citizenship status in the system.
- Next Steps: Because current statutes do not permit the immediate removal of these voters, Recorder Burchill confirmed that her office will mail letters to the 169 post-2004 voters requesting they submit valid proof of citizenship.
Yavapai County SAVE Audit: Key Cohorts & Outcomes
┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Cohort Group │ Quantity Checked │ Key Outcomes │
├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Total Voter Registrations │ 193,506 │ 30 non-citizens canceled (0.016%); 4 had voted in past │
├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ MVD Glitch Voters │ 6,781 │ 6,605 citizens confirmed; 10 non-citizens canceled │
├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Federal-Only Voters │ 299 │ 255 verified as citizens and upgraded to full ballots │
├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Rejected State Applicants │ 335 │ 316 verified as citizens and approved for registration │
└───────────────────────────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Official Responses and Legal Context
The rollout of the audit findings has sparked a range of responses from county officials, highlighting the ongoing tension between election security initiatives and voter access protections.
Recorder Michelle Burchill defended the expansive scope of the audit, emphasizing the value of a comprehensive baseline:
"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 also noted that her office would defer entirely to law enforcement regarding any potential criminal charges against the non-citizens who voted. "It will be completely up to them to investigate and decide what charges, if any, are going to be moving forward," she said. "I have not received any communication on any updates with that."
Yavapai County Board of Supervisors Chairman Brooks Compton (R-District 1) expressed strong support for the initiative, praising its dual impact on security and voter empowerment:
"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."
Conversely, the use of the SAVE database for large-scale voter list maintenance has faced intense legal scrutiny. In her June 22 ruling in League of Women Voters v. DHS, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan criticized the federal government’s expanded data-sharing policies, arguing they put legitimate voters at risk:
"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."
Implications for Arizona and Beyond
The Yavapai County audit serves as a critical case study in the national debate surrounding non-citizen voting and election administration. Originally established in 1987 to verify eligibility for public benefits, the SAVE database was expanded for voter registration verification under Executive Orders issued by President Donald Trump. While federal courts have questioned the legality of using the system for mass-verification, Yavapai’s experience demonstrates both the benefits and limitations of the tool.
Politically, the audit provides data for both sides of the election integrity debate. For advocates of stricter voting laws, the discovery of 30 non-citizens on the rolls—and the fact that four had successfully voted—validates concerns about database vulnerabilities.
For voting rights advocates, however, the extremely low percentage of non-citizens (0.016%) reinforces the argument that non-citizen voting is statistically rare. Furthermore, the audit highlights how systemic errors, such as the MVD data glitch, can inadvertently restrict eligible citizens from fully participating in elections. By verifying the citizenship of hundreds of federal-only and previously rejected voters, the Yavapai County audit demonstrated that targeted database integration can be used to expand access for eligible voters just as effectively as it purges ineligible ones.
