Maricopa County, home to Arizona's state capital Phoenix, saw some 80 percent of its voters cast early ballots in 2022. Images of a voter's political party showing through a clear cutout in the mail ballot envelopes from that year have reinvigorated unproven claims that Republican votes were mishandled. But state officials told AFP the yellow envelopes seen are only used to send primary ballots to voters and by law, a separate return envelope is provided to ensure voter party affiliation and selections remain private.
"Maricopa County ballot envelopes contained illegal 'cutout windows' in the envelopes containing actual ballots in order for Democrat operatives to allegedly identify Republican ballots to 'toss/lose' their ballots during the Arizona 2022 election," a May 23, 2026 post on X said.
The claim was amplified by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and in a video from the Maricopa County Republican Committee saying: "We SEE THROUGH what's going on with the SEE-THROUGH envelopes! This is exactly the WRONG kind of TRANSPARENCY!"
The posts spread to Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok ahead of Arizona's 2026 primary election, following years of unsubstantiated election fraud claims in the state and its largest county, Maricopa.
AFP previously debunked false claims that Republican ballots were not properly counted in the 2022 gubernatorial race which Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the general election. And there is no evidence the envelope design led...
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