Arizona residents accosted by people impersonating election officials -- and asked how they voted in 2020

Residents of Yavapai County, Arizona are being accosted at home by people who are falsely claiming to be local election officials and who are asking them how they voted in the 2020 election.

AZCentral reports that the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office this week warned residents that anyone claiming to be a representative of the country's recorder's office who asks them how they voted in 2020 is an imposter who should not be trusted.

Local officials say they do not yet know who or what is behind the canvassing effort, but Yavapai County Recorder Leslie Hoffman warned residents that giving the canvassers information could make them vulnerable to identity theft.

"I don't want some of our more vulnerable residents giving information and thinking they're giving it to the recorder's office," she said.

As AZCentral notes, the door-to-door canvassing is similar to a plan originally hatched by Arizona's state Republican senators to "statistically identify voter registrations that did not make sense, and then knock on doors to confirm if valid voters actually lived at the stated address."

But Cyber Ninjas, the company tasked with carrying out that operation, said that it would never ask residents about whom they voted for in the election.

Additionally, Senate President Karen Fann said that the original plans to canvass at voters' houses had for now been dropped.