In 1991, the Arizona Legislature allowed voters to request an absentee ballot for any reason. Before the change in the law, a voter requesting an absentee ballot had to prove they could not make it to the polls on election day. In 1997, state lawmakers made a simple change in Arizona election law. The word “absentee” was replaced by “early.” Since Arizona changed its early voting laws, making it easier to cast an early ballot, the practice has become very popular. Arizona became a model for other states. Most early ballots cast are done by mail. Arizona’s long history with voting by mail.
Howard Fischer reports, Do you vote early? You could lose that right under bill OK’ed by Arizona Senate panel:
Many of the 2.4 million Arizonans who voted early last election [eighty-eight percent of Arizona voters cast an early ballot, most of them by mail in 2020] could lose that right under legislation approved Monday by a Senate panel.
Now try to imagine the length of the lines at a polling place if all of these voters had to vote only on Election Day. This is classic GQP voter suppression.
Senate Bill 1404 would scrap longstanding law that allows any registered voter to request a ballot by mail, fill it out at home and then either mail it back or drop it off on Election Day at a polling place. Instead, that right would be reserved for only those who meet certain conditions.
Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, sponsor of the bill, said his interest is ensuring that voters don’t make premature decisions.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of information missing between, how many, a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month out, when somebody could early vote by mail to that point when we vote on the first Tuesday in November,’’ he said. “You’re going to miss a lot of information that’s fed to you.’’
Sounds like Nanny State, “we know what’s best for you” bullshit from so-called limited government Republcians. What a joke.
Gowan said his bill would resolve that by requiring most of the people who now vote early to instead go to the polls on Election Day.
The measure, advanced by a 5-3 party-line vote in the Republican-controlled Senate Government Committee, now needs a vote of the full Senate.
Gowan is willing to allow exceptions. [So now this guy is “the decider” for millions of Arizona voters? This is GQP authoritarianism run amok.]
One is for people who would be absent from their precinct on Election Day. Others who would be entitled to keep getting early ballots include those who are at least 65, live at least 15 miles from the polling place, have religious reasons against going to the polls, or are physically unable to get there.
Jennifer Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, told lawmakers she cannot say how many early voters would still qualify if Gowan’s bill were to become law.
Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, D-Tucson, said that should concern lawmakers of both parties. She said the record shows there were more early votes from Republicans last time than Democrats.
Lawmakers need to think carefully before taking that opportunity away from voters, said Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale.
“We gave them the choice,’’ Quezada said. “They chose to use that option. They chose it because it is a safe and reliable and secure choice.’’
The other side of the equation, he said, is: “The numbers of people who will not vote because of this will be tremendous.” [Voter suppression.]
Quezada also dismissed Gowan’s contention that those who choose to vote early are denying themselves information.
Personally, he said he gets an early ballot but hangs onto it until the last possible moment to see if there are late-breaking developments. Quezada said, though, he still wants to get the ballot early and presumes others feel the same way.
But Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, said she sides with those who find problems with the whole concept of early voting.
“The mail-in voting is something that’s convenient,’’ she said. “But it’s been grossly abused.’’
Rogers said it creates opportunities for fraudulent ballots that effectively can cancel legitimate ones.
As you might imagine, this seditious insurrectionist Oath Keeper and promoter of Trump’s Big Lie offered no evidence to support any of her unhinged assertions.
Somehow the QAnon Queen, Sen. Kelly Townsend did not make it into Howard’s reporting:
(I added the Arizona became a state part…Jenn never dunks)
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) February 7, 2022
Others who spoke before the panel argued the 2020 election showed there are pressing reasons to curb the process — despite the facts that every lawsuit challenging the election returns has been thrown out of court, and the Senate-ordered audit of Maricopa County’s returns failed to produce any evidence of fraud.
“What we did have was a lot of counterfeit ballots,’’ insisted Gail Golec, a Republican candidate for Maricopa County supervisor. She cited a report by Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, who was involved in the largely discredited Senate-ordered “fraudit” of the election returns, who claims to have technology to be able to spot fake ballots.
Golec also said she has four hours of “eyewitness testimony of people who saw batches and batches of Biden ballots in a row.’’ She also claimed there are “algorithms’’ of voting patterns that show irregularities.
This crazy woman is a well-known election conspiracy theorist who testifies in the GQP-controlled Arizona legislature on every one of these Trumpian election bills. Interview with Conspiracy Theorist, Gail Golec. She has absolutely no credibility and should not be given a platform to spew her unhinged conspiracy theories by the Arizona legislature.
But Arizona’s GQP Senators are all pretty unhinged too. All 16 of them voted for the Arizona Senate’s discredited GQP sham “fraudit.” If they had any integrity they would have all resigned en masse after they were thoroughly debunked and discredited.
If early voting by mail is so problematic, why do these GQP Senators not question the legitimacy of their own election results? Many of them, unfortunately, have been elected numerous times over the past 30 years on the strength of early voting by mail. Republicans have always sought to get their voters to vote early by mail, until now.
Maybe Democrats really have been winning elections all these years, but Republicans rigged the vote with their early ballots. Huh, HUH … you wanna get crazy, let’s get crazy!
Contact your state legisators and tell them to kill this bill, that you are an early voter and you want to continue to be an early voter. Enough of their bullshit.
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