PHOENIX — The Arizona Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a lower court decision that required the Secretary of State's office to release a list of tens of thousands of voters who were incorrectly assigned access to Arizona's complete ballots due to a coding error.

The court rejected an appeal from Foreign Minister Adrian Fontes' office that sought to overturn or at least suspend the lower court's order. A group had sued to check whether the people on the list were actually entitled to vote in full.

Fontes' office had initially rejected a public records request about the voter roll filed by America First Legal, a group run by Stephen Miller, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump. Fontes' office expressed concerns about the accuracy of the list and the safety of the voters included.

Fontes expressed disappointment at the latest ruling during a news conference and promised that officials would be vigilant for cases of voter intimidation. Although his intention was to ensure voter information remained protected, he said his office complied with the court order and turned over the list to the plaintiffs.

The lower court's decision allowed the plaintiff to distribute the list to county clerks, the state Senate president, the speaker of the House of Representatives and members of the election committees of both chambers, which the plaintiff said he wanted distributed. Senate President Warren Petersen posted on the social platform X that he had received the list.

Citing a previous Arizona Supreme Court ruling, Fontes said: “Every single one of these voters is entitled to vote and is entitled to vote in every single election.”

Arizona is unique among states in that it requires voters to prove their citizenship to vote in local and state elections. Anyone who has not done so, but has sworn to do so under penalty of perjury, is only allowed to take part in federal elections.

The misclassification of voters from pure federal voters to full voters was attributed to an error in the state driver's license databases and the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division.

Several close races in the battleground state are expected to be decided by razor-thin margins. While the group of approximately 218,000 potentially affected voters will not impact the outcome of federal elections, they could impact close state and local races.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled last week that the court had not received credible evidence that the information would be misused or promote violence or harassment against voters whose citizenship was not verified.

Still, Fontes reiterated his concerns Monday and used the news conference to take a swipe at the Republican-controlled Legislature. He said he spent hours with his lawyers trying to clear up “some of these crazy rules that were forced on us.”

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that anyone is confused about this,” Fontes said when asked about the conflicting guidance voters in some counties are receiving.