AZ Senate Jim Crow Republicans Advance Voter Suppression Bills (Updated)

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Republicans have been in control of the Arizona legislature since January 1967. (You read that right). Virtually all of our current election laws have been drafted and passed by Republican legislators to benefit Republican legislators maintaining their decades-long control over this state, from changing absentee voting to early voting by mail, to creating the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL), to online voter registration, and online petition signatures for legislative candidates.

It was only in the last two elections that Democrats have gotten as good as Republicans at turning out voters in early voting and winning elections that our Republican overlords claimed Democrats could not win (because they rigged the system to ensure permanent Republican rule). Then came Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him in 2020, because a Democrat won Arizona for only the second time since Harry Truman in 1948.

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Now Republicans are changing our election laws to make early voting more difficult (since Donald Trump convinced some of his tribe to vote in person on election day, so he could falsely claim that early voting is fraudulent, even though Republicans have been using early early voting in this state for decades). Upwards of 80 percent of Arizona voters, of all political persuasions, vote early by mail, so these bills to make early voting more difficult because “DearLeader” Donald Trump said so is going to make voting more difficult for all Arizona voters, of all political persuasions.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Senate moves to restrict early voting:

On a party-line vote, GOP senators on Monday decided to scrap existing laws which determine the validity of early ballots based solely on county election workers matching their signatures on the envelopes with what’s on file.

Instead, they would need to provide an affidavit with their date of birth and the number of a state driver’s license, identification card or tribal enrollment card.

No such identification? Voters would have to send a copy of any other federal state or locally issued ID card.

And if they don’t have that?

The proposal by Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler [this prick, again], gets more complicated.

First, there’s the need for someone’s voter registration number.

“Raise your hand if you know your voter registration number,” said Sen. Sean Bowie, D-Tempe.

But that isn’t enough. Then they have to enclose an actual physical copy of something with their actual address like a utility bill, vehicle registration form, property tax statement or a bank statement dated within the past 90 days.

Monday’s vote on SB1713 is just part of the GOP plan to make it more difficult to cast an early ballot.

Waiting in the wings for Senate debate is a proposal by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, which he already pushed out of the Appropriations Committee that would give early voters less time to make a decision.

First, it would chop five days off the front end before early ballots have to be mailed out. Under his legislation, they could not be mailed out more than 22 days ahead of an election, down from 27 days. And even if people had previously requested an early ballot, it might not be sent out until 19 days before the election; current law mandates they go out at least 24 days.

That, however, is only half of it.

Right now any ballot delivered by the post office by 7 p.m. on Election Day gets counted.

Gowan’s SB1593, however, says any ballot not actually postmarked by the prior Thursday is discarded — even if it shows up before close of business on Election Day.

This is quite literally voter disenfranchisement – rejecting validly cast ballots by qualified voters.

Nothing in Gowan’s bill precludes a voter from taking that early ballot to a polling place on Election Day, turning it in and instead getting a regular ballot.

Fuck you, Gowan. If people vote early by mail it counts if received by Election Day. Period. You can’t force people to vote at the polls on Election Day because of some bullshit conspiracy theory from Donald Trump that early voting is fraudulent. (Reality Check: every one of these state legislators were elected on the strength of early vote by mail ballots. Is their election fraudulent?)

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1369355651810525186

So-Called “Ballot Harvesting” (a pejorative)

But there is no longer the option for those who tend to wait until the last minute to give that early ballot to a neighbor to take the polls. A 2016 law pushed through by Republican legislators makes it a felony for voters who can’t get to a polling place to give it to most others. [This law is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Don’t hold your breath, the conservative Justices are some of the worst voter suppressors].

The two are just part of what has been a sustained effort by Republicans to change the rules following the returns which showed Joe Biden outpolling Donald Trump in Arizona, a result that some have refused to accept as valid.

Proponents say all they’re trying to do is ensure “election integrity.” That’s why the Senate, also on a party-line vote on Monday, gave $1 million to Attorney General Mark Brnovich he can use to investigate election fraud.

When Republicans say “election integrity” what they really mean is keeping undesirable minorities and Democratic-leaning voters from voting, because only white Republicans are legitimately entitled to rule in Arizona. If a Democrat wins, it must have been fraud in their twisted minds.

Note: Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington – conduct what are commonly referred to as all-mail elections. The Trump campaign did not file an election lawsuit in any of these states challenging its all-mail election.

Several of the Democrats, however, said they see something even more nefarious than politics in the motives. They said that the measures, taken together and separately, have a disparate effect on the ability of minorities to vote as they may not have a driver’s license and the same access to things like copy machines and printers to make copies of required documents.

“These are voter suppression bills,” said Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, D-Tucson.

That brought an angry reaction from Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale [the GQP’s Queen of voter suppression], who said that amounts to saying that Republicans are racists. [Yes, yes you are racist white Christian Nationalists! See, Voter Suppression Is The Only Policy Agenda Left for a White Christian Identity Party.]

She said the new forms of ID don’t disenfranchise anyone. And she said nothing in legislation is crafted to apply solely to one group. [She is only partly correct, it suppresses voters of all political persuasions. It is still voter suppression.]

But Sen. Kirsten Engel, D-Tucson, said that misstates the situation — and federal law.

She pointed out that courts have voided otherwise “facially neutral” laws if they have a disproportionate [disparate] impact on minorities.

“They are what they are,” said Gonzales of the effects of the legislation. “They are election suppression bills.”

And she said the reason is because Republicans fear the fact that by 2030 Hispanics will be the majority in Arizona.

Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Rios, D-Phoenix, was more blunt.

“Sometimes the truth hurts,” she said of the GOP efforts.

But Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who crafted the new requirements for mail-in voting, said he sees nothing wrong with providing some extra security to ensure that the votes received come from the people who were supposed to get those ballots.

Still, Mesnard said he will make some further changes when the bill now goes to the House to ease some of those requirements.

The Arizona Mirror adds, Senate passes bill adding new steps to vote by mail:

One Republican raised concerns with the bill, though he ultimately voted for it. In addition to new complications the bill would create, Sen. Tyler Pace, R-Mesa, said he worried that putting the affidavit inside the ballot return envelope would put election workers in a position where they would be able to see who a person voted for while checking the affidavit that determines whether their ballot will count. That would trade a forgery risk with privacy concerns, he said.

“Fundamentally, I agree that there needs to be some way to improve the process in which we return these ballots,” Pace said. “The problem is, every single way you look at it, it’s cumbersome.”

Pace also questioned the provisions that would require people to make copies of documents, noting that he recently purchased a printer for the first time in his life. But Pace said Mesnard had agreed to look for ways to amend the bill in the House of Representatives, and he voted in favor of SB1713 while reserving the right to vote against it if an amended version comes back to the Senate. If the House doesn’t amend the bill — Mesnard said that’s his plan — the Senate won’t get another chance to vote on it.

Note: Had Sen. Tyler Pace, R-Mesa, voted against this bill, a tie vote would have killed the legislation.

The Arizona Association of Counties, which represents election officials in all 15 counties, opposes the bill, as do several individual county recorders.

Gowan said his bill to trim the amount of time to get an early ballot back is designed to help out county recorders. He said having early ballots showing up at the last minute means they are busy processing those ballots that come in by mail when they should be working on dealing with the polling places on Election Day “so we can have an election that is counted soon instead of weeks like we’ve been seeing.”

Bowie, during committee debate on the measure, said that still doesn’t answer the other half of the question: Why delay having those ballots going out to voters in the first place?

Gowan defended the move, saying it should still give people enough time to make a decision, even with the new earlier deadline to drop it in the mail.

“I presume most people are going to make that decision in two weeks,” he said. “I’m sure that people would prepare themselves in anticipation of that early ballot coming.”

Sen Ruben Navarrete, D-Phoenix, was unconvinced.

“It really hurts too many Arizonans who are relying on this system,” he said.

Yeah, the upwards of 80 percent of Arizona voters who have been voting this way for years. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” the saying goes. There is a reliance factor here being ignored by Republicans. This will lead to a lot of valid ballots not being counted in the next election if these voter suppression bills become law.

Contact your state House members and tell them to reject these voter suppression bills.

UPDATE: State Senator Kirsten Engel (LD 10) provides an updated list of Jim Crow election bills.

Below are just some of the bad elections bills that have already cleared a legislative committee or chamber and are moving along toward final passage:

  • SB1485 (elections; voting center tabulation; NOW: early voting list; eligibility)(Ugenti-Rita): Unless a voter currently on the permanent early voter list responds to a written request, upon not voting in two election cycles, the voter will be dropped from the list and will no longer receive a mail-in ballot.
  • SB1010 (recount requests; amount; bond; procedure; NOW: recounts; requests; procedures; audits)(Mesnard):  Among other things, enables anyone to trigger a recount of an election not otherwise subject to an automatic recount provided they post a bond to cover the costs of the recount.
  • SB1106 (voting residency; intent to remain)(Mesnard): Classifies, as a class 6 felony, a person registering as an elector solely for the purpose of voting in an election and without an intent to remain.
  • SB 1358 (recorders; voter registrations; public buildings) (Ugenti-Rita): Prohibits a county recorder from conducting a voter registration drive or other similar voter registration event at any location that is not government owned.
  • SB1713 (early ballots; identification; mailing)(Mesnard): Requires a voter to include their date of birth and certain permissible forms of identification with the affidavit in the return envelope.
  • SB1531 (petition signatures; description; invalidity)(Mesnard): Voids the signature of any initiative or referendum petition signer that signs the petition.
  • HCR2016 (initiatives; supermajority vote requirement) (Dunn): Asks voters if they want to increase the threshold to pass an initiative from the current simple majority to 55%.
  • HB2793 (voter registration; request required) (Hoffman): Bans automatic voter registration.
  • HCR2023 (elections; state authority; infringement; opposition)(Hoffman): Declares the Legislature’s opposition to the For the People Act, a federal Democratic-supported bill to expand voting rights and change campaign finance laws that recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

Please sign into the Request To Speak (RTS) system and register your opposition to these bills.  In case you are not registered for the RTS system or do not know how it works, please see below!

Contact Civic Engagement Beyond Voting to request an account. They will create an account for you at the Capitol and notify you when it’s ready.

This legislative manual walks you through how to use the Request to Speak system.





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