In Arizona, a 2005 law required proof of citizenship when registering to vote. (No other state has this requirement.) An Arizona driver’s license was good enough, if issued after 1996, because citizenship was shown on them after that date. The law said that if you had a driver’s license issued before 1996, and were already registered to vote, that was good enough, you didn’t have to register again. But if you weren’t already registered to vote, your pre-1996 license was not sufficient.
Arizona licenses generally don’t expire until you are 65. So, there are a lot of people driving around with old licenses. But if you lost your license, or changed your address and needed a new license, it would be issued with the current date. No proof of citizenship required. But you could still use it to register to vote because no one would know it was really a pre-1996 license.
They just discovered there are about 100,000 people who have these “new” licenses that were just replacements for “old” licenses, and who registered to vote after 2005 without proving citizenship. They still qualify to vote in federal elections (because federal law doesn’t allow states to require proof of citizenship), but not for state and local races.
There are more Republicans than Democrats in this group, but the Republican county recorder in Phoenix is suing to keep all of them from voting. (He’s a good guy, he’s only doing this to help clear up the confusion.) The state Secretary of State who runs elections, a Democrat, is suing to allow all of them to vote. They hope for a decision before the ballots are printed. (Most people here vote by mail.)
I know, this is not tax-related, but it’s sort of BOI-related, because I don’t have this problem with updating driver’s licenses and you do. But as you point out, even an updated address requires BOI reporting.
