First posted on Instagram
The undercover journalism group Muckraker released undercover video on Thursday from Arizona in which canvassers working for organizations backing the re-election of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs appear willing to help non-citizens and a convicted felon register to vote. In the footage, released on October 22, Muckraker journalists pose as people who are plainly ineligible — a Canadian citizen, a non-citizen, and a felon on probation — and the canvassers agree to help them sign up anyway. Muckraker says its journalists stopped every exercise before any voter registration form was actually submitted.
The video covers four encounters. At Stand Indivisible Arizona, which endorsed Hobbs in its 2026 ballot guide, a journalist posing as a Canadian citizen asked to register to vote; the canvasser agreed to help, and when asked whether other Canadians could register too, replied: "tell them to do it online." At Worker Power, which is working to re-elect Hobbs, a journalist told a canvasser he was not a U.S. citizen; the canvasser then marked "yes" on the citizenship question of the voter registration form at the journalist's request. With When We Count, the Democratic National Committee's own registration program, a journalist posing as a felon on probation asked to register; the canvassers looked up the law and saw that a felon on probation is ineligible — and encouraged him anyway, saying: "You should just do it." In an AFL-CIO phone bank mobilizing voters for Hobbs, an undercover journalist volunteering there asked the trainer what to do if the person being called isn't a citizen; the trainer's answer was: "We don't care."
Muckraker says its team also asked Gov. Hobbs about the findings. The group's public description of the video gives no response from the governor or her office, and none of the groups shown in the footage have publicly addressed the video in the coverage of its release so far.
The release comes less than two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, in which Hobbs is seeking re-election as governor of Arizona. Arizona has been at the center of battles over non-citizen voting: voters there must show documentary proof of citizenship to vote in state elections, and state officials previously found tens of thousands of registered voters who had not provided that proof.