In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, the recorder at the Yuma County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Office offered more insight into the risks of fraudulent registration forms leading up to the 2022 primary election and the efforts she and her team were working on to improve the process.
“Our primary is Aug. 2. We have received registration forms that are fraudulently completed,” Yuma County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, who provides oversight into the county’s voter registration and early voting, told The Epoch Times on June 7. “It’s been a prevalent problem in Yuma County, and it’s very unfortunate.”
Pouquette’s allegations come in addition to other witness reports and allegations of voting fraud that are the subject of 16 open investigations at the sheriff’s office.
While Pouquette couldn’t provide any names because the investigation is ongoing, she confirmed to The Epoch Times that many of the anomalous cases pertain to nonprofits operating on a national scale, which she believes to be “political advocacy groups.”
Unusual Signs
Pouquette said that while third-party organizations that solicit voter registrations serve an important role in assisting voters, they’re also a point of vulnerability in the election process if the ballots they help voters submit are fraudulent—because of intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of a voter’s wishes.“I believe it’s a vulnerability of the system, in the sense that fraudulent voter registrations can disrupt the legitimate active registration of an eligible voter,” she said. “It is a very disruptive process for the office when we should be focusing on audits and making sure that we’re auditing our records prior to the distribution of ballots.
“I am very passionate about it because there is no regulation that precludes voter registration activities [by] third-party groups. I feel that voter registration solicitors should be held accountable to a higher standard.”
After these third-party organizations drop the voter registration forms they’ve collected at the recorder’s office, Pouquette and her team run them through a statewide database to cross-check the identifying information on each form to the voter.
However, Pouquette said she’s noticed unusual signs with some of the forms she’s received.
“I could immediately see that there were individual names in those forms that were people that I knew were already registered. But they were utilizing real people’s names with fake addresses and fake dates of birth,” she said.
“One of them was our pediatrician. One of them was a local attorney who I had been an acquaintance of and had passed away for some time. One was a minor that I believe was around the age of 14. ... So it just became very clear that there was a problem.
“And then we’re getting five, six registration forms for the same person. As you can imagine, that’s where we feel that there’s an intentional effort to disrupt the system and identify vulnerabilities.”
Pouquette said they’ve noticed more than 100 such anomalies in the registration process leading up to the 2022 primaries and have sent letters to each of the addresses indicated on the registration forms as required by law.
New Law Proposed
Pouquette noted that after she noticed a pattern of fraudulent registration in 2016, she and her team began to work with the Arizona legislature to develop new laws to “define parameters for regulation of voter registration solicitation.” However, she said the efforts have been largely unsuccessful.“[The legislation] required that third-party registration solicitors turn in the forms within five days so that there’s a time frame on accountability and any fraudulent form be subjected to a class-6 felony,” Pouquette said. “And as you can imagine, it was very controversial.”
The measure would also require anyone collecting more than 25 voter registration forms to identify themselves with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office so the recorder’s office would have the ability to contact them for any issues with the forms they turned in. The legislation failed its third reading in March and is set to be reconsidered for another reading in the Senate.
“We don’t want to diminish the work that third-party groups do ... to solicit voter registration. I believe that that’s important and we should have groups that are able to do that. I just simply feel that we should place accountability measures that ... professionalize the process to provide that trust to the community. I simply felt that it was a step in the right direction for accountability,” Pouquette said of the legislation.
‘A Few Bad Actors’
Pouquette hoped to clarify that not all third-party groups that register voters are disruptive to the election process.“So even a few bad actors, as you can imagine, contribute such a negative light on the process overall, which affects my office and the public trust in the electoral process ... the other third-party groups that are making significant efforts to engage with voters and assist in the democratic process,” she said.
“I always tell people they should be very proud to vote in Arizona, regardless of the negativity swirling around elections, because we work really hard. So I invite people in to see the process here from the ground floor to really understand what we do to verify and over verify and verify third time and audit. Those are just regular practices happening on a daily basis during the cycle here.
“I just really feel that that gets overlooked—you know how bold election officials are, how brave they are, and doing this kind of work every single day, despite the critical response.”
In a statement published June 13, Yuma County announced that Pouquette would be resigning from her role as an elected County Recorder, effective July 18, and “pursuing a new opportunity within the Yuma County organization.”
“Pouquette was first elected as County Recorder in 2008 and since that time has made remarkable advancements to voter registration and election administration in Yuma County, including integrating the two offices under her leadership in 2018. She has been a tireless advocate for Yuma County voters, election security and integrity, and process improvements,” the statement says.
