Nearly 98,000 people whose U.S. citizenship has not yet been confirmed will be eligible to vote in upcoming state and local elections, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The ruling followed a “coding error” in the state’s software that prompted the swing state’s Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, to insist he would send ballots to affected voters regardless.

The error in the database cast doubt on the citizenship status of 100,000 registered voters in Arizona. The individuals were individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses before October 1996 and then received duplicates before registering to vote after 2004.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes looks on during a House Administration Committee hearing in Washington, DC (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)

Fontes and Maricopa County Clerk Stephen Richer, the Republican, disagreed over what status voters should have after “encoding oversight.”
“This was discovered, not because someone voted illegally and not because someone tried to vote illegally, as far as we can tell,” Fontes said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “And this was basic maintenance of the voter rolls, and it showed us that there is this problem.”

A voter fills out her ballot during early voting. (Reuters/Nick Oxford)

Richer filed a special case Tuesday asking the state Supreme Court to decide the issue.

“I am of the opinion that these registrants have not provided the documentary proof of Arizona citizenship and therefore can only cast a ‘FED ONLY’ ballot,” Richer wrote on X.

FILE – A woman walks to the polls to cast her vote after filling out her ballot in a voting booth during the gubernatorial election in Newark, New Jersey, Nov. 2, 2021. (REUTERS/Eduardo Muñoz)

The mistake comes as Republicans in Arizona and a conservative watchdog group are pushing for stricter voting measures that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to participate in the state’s elections and federal elections. Arizona is also a swing state, but the mood changed in the 2020 presidential election.

Jamie Joseph of Fox News Digital and the Associated Press contributed to this report.