With Arizona Democratic House Leader Oscar De Los Santos telling audience members that state Republican Legislators, like Representative and Secretary of State candidate Alex Kolodin, like his MAGA master Donald Trump, want to put a bullet in the head of mail-in voting (except on those occasions when they need to use it), other leading Grand Canyon State Democrats, led by Yassamin Ansari, appeared with other Democratic Congressional and activist all stars like Alexandra Oscaio Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Deja Foxx, Joy Reid, Max Frost, Greg Casar, Rho Khanna, David Packman, and Robert Garcia to help launch the Protect the Vote Arizona Ballot Inititaive.
With Donald Trump and his White Nationalist Republican loyalists at the federal, state, and local level touting the Big Lie of the 2020 elections and their kindred spirits on the federal and state courts working overtime to rig the 2026 and 2028 electioral contests to turn the clock back to a combination of the Gilded Age, Jim Crow South, and the Handmaids Tale, by embracing partisan gerrymandering, considering the voter-suppressing SAVE ACT, and gutting key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Ansari, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Representative Adelita Grijalva, Representative Greg Stanton, and Leader De Los Santos all called for Arizonans to act and fight to protect Democracy in the state by helping to gather 500,000 valid signature by July 2, 2026 for the Protect the Vote Arizona initiative that would secure for all eligible voters, if the people pass it this November:
- Voting by mail.
- Voting early, in person
- Voting on Election Day at county voting centers.
- Allowing voters to sign up to receive a ballot for every election.
- Codifying common-sense voter ID requirements, which have been Arizona law since 2005.
- Requiring the outcome of elections to be determined solely by the votes cast by eligible U.S. citizen voters.
- Forbidding the Legislature from eliminating mail-in voting or reducing the early-voting period
In her opening remarks, Representative Ansari justified leading the launch of the Protect the Vote Arizona ballot intiative by saying:
“…We’ve seen every single day Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress try to rip away our fundamental right to vote and attack our Democracy in real time. From the SAVE Act that could disenfranchise millions of people from voting to Donald Trump’s threats to nationalize elections and get rid of vote-by-mail. These attacks have been extreme.
We saw the SCOTUS decision attacking voting rights as well and so Arizona also continues to be on the front lines because what happens in Arizona is that our Republican state legislature tends to copy all of the crazy things that Republicans here in Congress want to do. So we are seeing a massive attack on our voting rights in the state. We have Republicans trying to refer measures to the ballot that would restrict vote by mail which has been trusted and verified and so popular in Arizona used by Arizonans for decades and so we are launching Protect the Vote Arizona.”
Ansari then explained the goals of the campaign, conveying:
“This campaign is very exciting and attempts to do three things. We are going to, first of all, defeat far-right extremist attempts to go after our voting rights in the state of Arizona. Second, we are going to enshrine vote by mail in our state constitution, and third, this is part of a broader national effort.
We are building a national coalition to protect our free and fair elections across the United States, and it’s really exciting, but it’s also going to be a ton of work. So I’m excited to talk to you all about that… We have massive goals we have to hit.
We have to collect 500,000 signatures in Arizona by July 2nd to qualify for the ballot, and so we need everyone here tonight involved, engaged, because what happens in Arizona is going to set the stage for what happens across the entire country…”
“…These are our fundamental rights. We know that we are on the right side of history. We know that the American people, no matter their political party, are behind us, but we have to make sure we enshrine these rights in our Constitution because we know that the other side is bending over backwards to take away our rights.”
Returning from witnessing Trump regime abuses at a Texas immigrant detention center (a situation that would only worsen if Trump and his White Nationalist loyalists are able to control local, state, and national elections), Representative Adelita Grijalva reminded listeners that Arizona already is “operating from a place of stricter voting enforcement and restrictions.”
Furthermore, she stressed that “for Arizona to now be facing the possibility of having illegal gerrymandering and redistricting, when Arizona has an independent redistricting commission that should be allowed to do what it’s supposed to do, but we’ve seen how they’re (Trumpist Republicans in Arizona) going to try to change things because of the Supreme Court decision.”
Saying Trump White Nationalist Republicans in Arizona and across the country do not want non whites to have political power, Grijalva also said:
“We have to give people hope that there is a way out of this, because if we just give up and lay down and say, you know what, things aren’t going to happen the way they’re supposed to happen, they win. Because if we keep to the same rules that have been established, Republicans know that they’re going to lose. That’s why they keep changing the rules. That’s the only reason why we’re in this situation right here. They know that we are; our message is resonating with people, and we have to continue to organize, fight back, and protect the right of every American to participate in our democracy. That’s the way it should be. So that’s why all of us are here tonight. That’s why we’re here. And ProtectTheVoteAZ is a way for us to get involved.”
Arizona’s chief election officer, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes spoke after Grijalva and Representative Jasmine Crockett, telling the audience:
“We have had to deal with unjustified and not based in evidence challenges to one of the best voting systems in the United States of America.
We have ballot by mail, no-excuse absentee voting. We have 27 days of early voting here in Arizona, and we were the first state to implement online voter registration. But slowly but surely, after we saw an expansion of a lot of voting rights and a lot of advocacy, some folks started feeling politically threatened…”
“…As the chief election officer, our job is to make sure that the counties do their job well, that they have the resources, that they have the rules that they can follow to do the job for their voters. And when you’re in an environment where the rules are always shifting, there’s lawsuits all over the place for no really good reason that are actually gonna hurt voters, that becomes not just a distraction, but it makes it difficult for those of us who do this work on the ground…”
“…We need folks to be engaged, we need folks to be informed, we need folks to get out there and make sure that they are making a difference… What is most important is how much harder they’re trying to make your job as a voter, how much less they’re trying to allow you as a voter to be able to exercise that voice…As the Secretary of State, I’m gonna keep fighting for every single voter so that we can actually fulfill that dream that is the United States of America…”
In his remarks, Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis reminded viewers that Native Americans were the last minority group given the right to vote just over a century ago and warned about the political peril Native Americans faced if Trumpist White Nationalist Republicans were able to get their way in controlling the conduct and outcomes of elections, offering:
“…Efforts right now to take away mail and voting, or online registrations, serve only one purpose. I think we all know that to make it harder, to make it harder for our members to vote, with the goal of suppressing our voice.”
Appearing with Governor Lewis, Democratic House Leader Oscar De Los Santos commented:
“I want to repeat that because everybody needs to know what we’re up against, I quote, bullet in the head of mail-in voting. So that is what we’re up against.
I have been in the legislature for now four years, and year after year after year, day after day, we’re seeing bills that attack the right to vote in a bunch of different ways, whether it’s, you know, killing vote by mail or restricting early voting. One of the other things they’re trying to do is go back to precinct voting or, you know, all these crazy ideas. They’ve got dozens and dozens of bills, and we’re fighting them left and right.
And that’s why today is so important. That is why Protect the Vote Arizona is so critical, because we can protect our right to vote and not just always be on defense. And I want to say this is an incredible opportunity because it gives the people the chance to vote on this and to enshrine this in our state laws.
And that is how we have fought and won. When the Republicans in the legislature refused to raise the minimum wage, the people did it at the ballot. When they refused to protect our right to abortion, the people enshrined that right in the Constitution at the ballot.
When the Republicans were attacking DREAMers, the people protected DREAMers at the ballot. So this is a battle-tested method on how we can win.”
During her presentation, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes reminded the program watchers that Arizonans embrace mail in voting and she, and other Democratic Attorney Generals have succeeded in stopping Trump’s attempts to control the electoral process in court, commenting:
“…This really is about protecting American Democracy. And in Arizona, we love to vote by mail. And that is how we vote. I mean, 80 to 85% of Arizonans vote by mail. And people don’t realize this, but it was actually the Republican Party that engineered vote-by-mail in 1992 in Arizona. So the Republicans created vote-by-mail, thankfully. And it has become wildly popular. So if there is an attempt to undermine this initiative, or even to defeat this initiative, I don’t think anybody can defeat this initiative, because Arizonans love vote by mail and believe in the right to vote early, also in person early, which would be protected. Then they’re asking for it. That would be tremendously unpopular. So this is a part of, I think, the effort of Arizonans to push back against the Trump administration, which has systematically been trying to undermine the right of all Americans to vote…“
“…Donald Trump just tried to seize voter rolls throughout this country. And in Arizona, we fought back, and we said, “No, you’re not getting a hold of our voters’ personal identifying information and voter rolls. And we won in front of a Republican Trump-appointed judge who said, no, Donald Trump, you can’t have the voter rolls in Arizona. We also have fought back against the executive order by Donald Trump that would have essentially tried to seize control of the entire election system, which is to be run by the states pursuant to law and the Constitution. And so, you know, I think this is an effort by Arizonans to ensconce and permanently ensconce the right to vote by mail, which is fabulously popular.”
In his remarks, Representative Stanton spoke about what Democrats would work for if they regain the House majority, saying:
“When we get the majority in Congress, I think we will, after the November elections, we’ll be able to do a lot more from our perch other than fighting on the House floor.
We’ll actually be able to affirmatively move forward with positive legislation. But in the meantime, having the Attorneys General fight so hard for our shared values is very important. Look, in Arizona, we are sick and tired of the big lie. No state has been just hammered by it, exhausted by it. And that’s all it is, a big lie. The elections here in Arizona have been run well, forever. And they never weren’t run well, even when Donald Trump lost. And the fact that he can’t get over it, and the fact that he’s putting our fellow Arizonans through this over and over and over again, and sadly getting so many people to lose confidence in elections, not because of anything that election officials have done. They’ve behaved 100% professional, even in the worst of times, even in the death threats that they were facing after the last round of the big lie coming our way.
We all respect them so much. Enough is enough. And that’s what this initiative really is about, as Arizonans coming together and saying enough is enough.
And Joy talked a little bit about the importance of Arizona. We are probably the most important battleground state in the country, as purple as purple can be. But as long as Republicans keep putting up these election denialism-type candidates, we get great elected officials like Kris Mayes in statewide office as a result of that.”
Closing out the presentation, Representative Ansari returned, and like everyone else, called on Arizonans to act, saying:
“We are seeing Donald Trump and Republicans all over the country go after our voting rights, whether it’s the SCOTUS decision from last week to Republicans in Arizona who are trying to end mail-in voting and suppress voters, so it is campaigns like this and movements like this, Protect the Vote Arizona, that keep me so hopeful, and that’s why I’m so excited to be chairing this campaign and why I’m so excited to have so much support from around the country, because what happens in Arizona, just like what happened in California with redistricting, just like what’s been going on in Virginia, we have to lead in this fight, and we have to show that when people come together and organize from the ground up, we can win, and so I just want to end with one more huge call to action tonight. For anyone still tuned in, please get involved.
We have huge goals. We have to hit 500,000 signatures by July 2nd. We’re going to make it happen, but we’re going to need all of you to be part of that fight to make it happen, so please go to protectthevoteaz.com, sign up to volunteer, grab petition signature sheets from us and collect them in your neighborhoods, at coffee shops, at local businesses, and get them back to us, and if you’re not in Arizona, please chip in.
If you’re still watching, you could chip in $5, $10 today to help our efforts to make sure we can get people on the ground knocking on doors to collect these signatures.
We know we can win, and we will stand up to Donald Trump. We will stand up to extremism, and we’re going to win. I know we’re going to win. We’re going to win.”
Please click here to find out more information on Protect the Vote Arizona and how you can help make this ballot initiative to protect the Grand Canyon State’s Democracy successful.
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