The U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Timothy Courchaine, announced on Friday, October 30, that his office has opened a case into reporting that three Arizona voter-registration organisations registered noncitizens to vote, and has already referred the matter to the FBI for a full federal investigation. The announcement, made four days before the Tuesday, November 3 midterm elections, names Stand Indivisible Arizona, Worker Power, and When We Count, a voter-registration programme associated with the Democratic National Committee. No charges have been announced, and the U.S. Attorney's office has not publicly identified any noncitizen who was registered.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Arizona (justice.gov), Oct 30, 2026, via WorkersRights.News
The letters to Arizona election officials
On Monday, October 26, Courchaine sent letters to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap asking both offices to review registrations submitted by the three groups. Citing what he called written and video reports, Courchaine wrote that people acting for the groups 'either intentionally disregarded or were recklessly ignorant' of Arizona's ban on registering noncitizens, and that, based on a cursory review, the groups and their volunteers or employees 'may have violated' Arizona law. He asked Fontes for a review of the registrations the groups submitted, to ensure only U.S. citizens were registered.
The law, and the allegation — labelled as an allegation
The statute cited in the letters is A.R.S. § 16-182, which makes it a class 6 felony — Arizona's lowest felony grade — to knowingly cause someone to be registered who is not entitled to vote. In its announcement, the U.S. Attorney's office reminded the public that voting in federal elections is limited solely to U.S. citizens, including for noncitizens who are lawfully in the country on a visa or as legal permanent residents. These remain allegations: the letters name no voter, no registration form and no specific registration, and nobody has been charged. Readers should treat the claim that any noncitizen was actually registered as unproven unless and until investigators produce evidence.
Where the reporting came from
Reporting by Axios Phoenix and others traces the case to an undercover video published on October 22 by the outlet Muckraker, which purportedly showed registration workers discussing registering people who were not eligible to vote. A summary of that video by Particle News notes it shows a man posing as a noncitizen or a felon asking about registration, but does not show any volunteer actually submitting a voter registration. Democracy Docket reported that the inquiry grew out of reports circulating on social media, and that the three groups had not responded to its requests for comment as of October 31.
Who the three groups are
Worker Power describes itself as a worker-led, multi-racial economic-justice organisation in Phoenix; in 2024 it ran a canvass with UNITE HERE Local 11, the hotel and food-service workers' union, that grew to more than 500 canvassers — cooks, dishwashers, housekeepers and airport and food-service workers, in the words of Local 11 co-president Susan Minato, who chairs Worker Power's board. Stand Indivisible Arizona is a volunteer-run nonprofit based in Scottsdale. Arizona's Family (KTVK/KPHO) reported that When We Count is the one group of the three tied to a political party, the Democrats. The Democratic National Committee denied knowledge of any of its fellows registering noncitizens and called the claims fabricated, according to Particle News.
The FBI referral is an investigation, not a conviction or a court finding. No charges have been filed, no registration has been publicly identified as improper, and the groups are entitled to respond. This story labels every claim accordingly.
The wider fight over noncitizen-voting claims
The Arizona referral landed in a week when federal courts pushed back on parts of the administration's noncitizen-voting effort. On October 30, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson barred the Justice Department from threatening election officials into halting the count of ballots it says came from noncitizens; the department appealed on October 31. The same day, at a hearing over the department's noncitizen lists in California and Washington, Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, 'I cannot disagree with you that the government has made mistakes,' according to Democracy Docket — and an analysis of the California list found 8,880 of the 20,930 people on it were not registered at all.
Why it matters in Arizona
Arizona is a closely watched swing state, and its November 3 ballot includes races for governor, other statewide offices and the state's U.S. House seats. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, is one of the largest voting jurisdictions in the country. Election officials and observers quoted in coverage of the referral warned that an announcement of this kind, coming after the registration deadline and days before voting ends, can confuse voters — including naturalised citizens and legal residents in Arizona's large immigrant communities, among them Punjabi and other South Asian families in the Phoenix area, who are fully entitled to vote once they are citizens and registered.
What happens next
Secretary of State Fontes and Recorder Heap now decide what their reviews of the groups' registrations find, and the FBI decides whether to pursue the referral further. Anyone who registered through any group this year can confirm their registration status before November 3 through Arizona's official voter portal. Awaaz Punjab will follow the reviews and any response from the three groups, and will report any charges — or any finding that no improper registrations occurred — with the same prominence.