Did election fraud occur when 60 people in Maricopa County, Arizona, registered to vote using a municipal building as their home address? No, that's not true: The Maricopa County public information officer told Lead Stories that the voters registered in this building, the West Court Building, do not have a permanent address and can use the courthouse as their address. The county election board's voter education handout listed the county courthouse as one of the places people without a permanent address can use as their address to register to vote.
The claim about these voters appeared in a post and video (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on November 4, 2024. The post said:
In Maricopa County, over 60 people are registered to vote using this municipal building as their home address.
@realmuckraker investigates.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tues Nov 5 19:45:25 2024 UTC)
The account that posted the video is The Oversight Project (archived here), which is part of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank (archived here). The man in the video begins questioning why there are so many individuals registered at the address, and then asks people leaving or standing outside the building if they know why people are registered to vote there.
The man introduces the video, saying:
OK, so, right now we are in Maricopa County at the county recorder's office, and the reason why we're here is because over 60 individuals have used this address to register to vote. We have no idea why that is.
A Maricopa County public information officer told Lead Stories via email on November 5, 2024, that it was "correct" that the large number of voters registered there were homeless:
An individual experiencing homelessness can use a municipal courthouse or city building as their address on their voter registration form if they do not have a permanent address.
The Maricopa County election board published a voter education handout (archived here) that described how people without a permanent residence can register to vote, as the screenshot below shows:
- Homeless shelter
- Temporary place for living where the individual is a resident (halfway house, transitional housing)
- County courthouse in the county in which the resident resides
- General delivery address for a post office covering the location where the registrant is a resident
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tues Nov 5 19:51:15 2024 UTC)
The Maricopa County Recorder's office (archived here) is located inside the same building as the courthouse, which is the West Court Building (archived here) in Phoenix, Arizona, the public information officer confirmed to Lead Stories.
Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding Maricopa County can be found here. Our fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. general election can be found here.
