The move came after the state Court of Appeals issued a brief ruling Monday rejecting a bid by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to block the list from being shared with the Strong Communities Foundation. Appellate Judge Michael Catlett, writing for the three-judge panel, said Fontes had provided no evidence that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney made a legal or factual error in asking the clerk to issue the requested information.

Fontes made it clear that he still believes that publishing the names could cause harm, as voters on the list could face harassment and threats from “election deniers.”

“I think they plan to go after voters that they may disagree with politically,” he said at an afternoon news conference. “I think they plan to knock on their doors and try to stop them from voting.”

Merissa Hamilton, head of the Strong Communities Foundation, said it was not her intention to harass voters. In fact, she pointed out, the court order prohibits her organization from directly contacting anyone on that list before Wednesday, the day after the election.

Those names would be immediately forwarded to the 15 county clerks, Hamilton said.

She said this would allow them to do everything in their power to verify that those on the list are actually eligible to cast full ballots before the next election after Tuesday.

But nothing in the court order prevents others who obtain the information from using it to prove that the election results were influenced by illegal voters. And all usage restrictions will disappear on Wednesday.

“These people are shameless in their legal efforts,” said Fontes of Stronger Communities, a group associated with politically conservative causes including ending the so-called “deep state,” removing “explicit books” from county libraries, etc against “radical goals” at the Arizona Corporation Commission. “They believe that their right to investigate and harass voters is more important than the voter’s right to actually cast their vote,” Fontes claimed.

Blaney's order allows Hamilton to give a copy to the president of the Arizona Senate, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and members of both chambers' election committees. Some members of these bodies are still publicly questioning the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that all 218,000 voters on the list could vote in this election.

That could provide candidates who lose their elections with new fodder to face legal challenges. This is even more true since the number of voters on this list could far exceed the odds of winning in some close races.

Four years ago, Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in Arizona by 10,457 votes. In 2022, Republican Kari Lake – now running for Senate – lost the gubernatorial race to Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes. And Democrat Kris Mayes won the race for attorney general over Abe Hamadeh by just 280 votes.

But Hamilton said there's another side to releasing the list to county clerks. She said it could help prevent some legal voters from being disenfranchised.

In at least two counties, some people were told they could not vote because they lacked proof of citizenship.

Taylor Kinnerup of the Maricopa Couty Recorder's Office said that happened when those on a version of the list tried to change their registration. She said the first ballots they cast back then were “pending.”

However, Kinnerup said that all of this is now resolved, especially since the Supreme Court has made it clear that everyone on that list is entitled to cast a full vote at least this year, while issues with the voter registration database have been resolved.

There were similar problems in Pinal County.

But Hamilton said she believes there are actually at least some names on the list of people who are not citizens. She now wants the recorders to compare names with federal databases to clean up the lists before the next election.

Still, she acknowledged that ultimately she doesn't expect many people to be removed from the voter rolls.

“I expect that a large majority of the voters on this list are citizens,” Hamilton told Capitol Media Services. “I assume it will only be a small proportion that doesn’t.”

However, she added that the error in the voter registration database that caused the problem doesn't give her confidence.

“I just don’t think we can have confidence in the management of the MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) system at this time,” Hamilton said. She wants an independent review, separate from the one ordered by Governor Hobbs.

The problem stems from a law passed by voters in 2004 that requires proof of citizenship to register and vote.

This law states that credentials can be verified by having the registrant provide the number on an Arizona driver's license issued after October 1, 1996. This is the effective date of a separate law requiring proof of legal presence to obtain a driver's license.

The only thing is that MVD didn't always report the date of the original license to county election officials, but rather the date someone received a duplicate license or made an address change. And if that date was after October 1, 1996, the recorders assumed that there was proof of citizenship on file, even though there was not.

The error was discovered recently when Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer discovered a registered person who was actually not a citizen despite MVD certification.

The list was initially estimated at 98,000, but grew to about 218,000 as other problems were discovered in the connection between the MVD database and what was provided to counties.

The state Supreme Court then acknowledged that the error might not provide the legally required “documented proof of citizenship.” But the justices said that given the timing so close to the Nov. 5 election – and given that everyone on the list appeared to have been in Arizona before October 1996 – they did not want to risk disenfranchising legitimate voters.

Meanwhile, Stronger Communities went to court to obtain its own copy of the list.

Fontes acknowledged that it was a public record. In fact, the entire voter registration file is public.

But he argued that publication could lead to threats and intimidation of voters – and possibly even violence. He said this falls under the law's exception that allows withholding public records in the “best interest of the state.”

However, Blaney noted that Hamilton testified that her organization would not use it to contact voters, but instead would only give it to county clerks and certain state legislators.

The appeals court then found no problem with Blaney's sentence.