voter suppression

Is there a voter crisis in Arizona?

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Recently in July 2018  the ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy issued a report  entitled “Arizona’s Voter Crisis”.

Here’s the report funded by the Citizens Clean Election Commission (CCEC) and on their website:

https://storageccec.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/docs/312-Voter-Crisis-Report-FINAL3.pdf

I attended a recent Tucson town hall on October 24 hosted by these 2 entities in which Joseph Garcia of ASU (director of communication & impact/co-author of the report) and Tom Collins E.D. of CCEC reported that  2.1 million or 45% of Arizona’s “potential voters” in 2016 (General) didn’t choose to exercise their fundamental right to vote.  They reported on the nationwide trend in erosion of voter participation & on groups which aren’t voting in high numbers:  youth, less educated, and Latinos.  Moreover, Independents have a lower voter turnout due to not voting in primaries (don’t feel that they belong to either party or don’t know they can vote in the primaries by requesting a party ballot), and also don’t feel part of the electoral process.

In August 2018, the voter turnout statewide (of registered voters) for the Arizona Primary was: 33.26%

In the Arizona Mid-term General Election 2018 the voter turnout statewide was:   64.33%.  And higher in Pima County: 70.55%

So the big question in the report was “Why Don’t More People vote?”  (see page 15). There are a myriad of answers including “too busy” “out of town”, etc. but a main reason seems to be lack of information on the candidates and voting process.   So that means better ways to reach voters needs to occur, along with more information.  We here at Blog for Arizona do our best in that regard.
Local reporters after the recent elections were saying that negative campaigning suppresses the vote, or backfires against candidates doing negative campaigning.

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The GOP’s ‘voter fraud’ fraud is illegal voter intimidation

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Voter intimidation is a crime. 18 U.S. Code § 594 – Intimidation of voters.

And yet President Donald Trump and his soon-to-be former Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III are openly engaging in the crime of voter intimidation, for the first time ever in American history. Without evidence, Trump and Sessions warn of voter fraud in Tuesday’s elections:

President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday issued strong warnings about the threat of voter fraud in Tuesday’s elections, echoing the president’s baseless claims that massive voter fraud marred his 2016 election and prompting accusations that his administration is trying to intimidate voters.

In a tweet early Monday, Trump said that law enforcement has been “strongly notified” to watch for “ILLEGAL VOTING.” He promised that anyone caught voting improperly would be subjected to “Maximum Criminal Penalties.”

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Sessions, in a statement laying out the Justice Department’s plans to monitor ballot access on Election Day, said “fraud in the voting process will not be tolerated. Fraud also corrupts the integrity of the ballot.”

In remarks to reporters on his way to a campaign rally in Cleveland, Trump also falsely claimed that voter fraud is commonplace.

“Just take a look,” he said. “All you have to do is go around, take a look at what’s happened over the years, and you’ll see. There are a lot of people — a lot of people — my opinion, and based on proof — that try and get in illegally and actually vote illegally. So we just want to let them know that there will be prosecutions at the highest level.”

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States. Trump formed a commission to study the issue shortly after he took office that was disbanded without finding evidence of fraud after states refused to turn over voter data.

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Why Oprah votes … and wants you to

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Oprah Winfrey delivered an impassioned call to voters Thursday in a fiery stump speech in support of Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Stumping for Abrams, Oprah makes impassioned plea for turnout:

“I’m here today because of the men and because of the women who were lynched, who were humiliated, who were discriminated against, who were suppressed, who were repressed and oppressed, for the right for the equality at the polls,” Winfrey said. “And I want you to know that their blood has seeped into my DNA, and I refuse to let their sacrifices be in vain. I refuse.”

Video link.

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Oprah then recounted the story of Otis Moss, Sr., a black man who tried to vote on election day in Georgia but was given the runaround by white poll workers. He walked for 18 hours that day to three different polling places, and at the end of the day he was told “Boy, you’re too late, the polls are closed.” And he never never had a chance to vote. By the time the next election came around he had died.

Oprah then says, “So when I go to the polls and I cast my ballot, I cast it for a man I never knew. I cast it for Otis Moss, Sr. who walked 18 miles one day just for the chance to vote.”

“And when I stand in the polls I do as Maya Angelou says, ‘I come as one but I stand as 10,000.'” “For all those who paved the way that we might have the right to vote.”

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Michelle Reagan is terrible, but Steve Gaynor fancies himself the next Kris Kobach

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Arizona’s bumbling  Secretary of State, Michelle Reagan, appears headed for defeat in the GOP primary as a result of her demonstrated incompetence and repeated failures in performing the essential functions of her job.

Unfortunately her Republican opponent, millionaire businessman Steve Gaynor, fancies himself the next Kris Kobach, the GOP voter suppression specialist from Kansas.

Daily Kos reports GOP primary frontrunner for Arizona secretary of state wants to stop printing ballots in Spanish:

At a recent debate ahead of Arizona’s Aug. 28 Republican primary for secretary of state, businessman Steve Gaynor advocated for banning the printing of ballots and other election materials in Spanish, arguing that they should only be in English. Furthermore, Gaynor called for repealing the 1975 amendment to the federal Voting Rights Act that, thanks to a history of discrimination by many states—including Arizona itself—requires jurisdictions with large populations of non-English speakers to provide election materials in voters’ native languages.

Given that record of discrimination in a state that’s one-quarter Latino or Native American, it’s astonishing that a candidate would openly advocate for a measure that could make voting considerably more difficult for so many. But with Republicans escalating their voter suppression efforts thanks to a Supreme Court that seems determined to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act, Gaynor’s proposal isn’t an empty threat.

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Federal court strikes down Kansas proof of citizenship law for voter registration

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Kansas and Arizona both use a “dual” election system based upon the form of voter registration one uses.

NoVoteBoth states refused to allow those who use the federal voter registration form, which requires only an attestation of U.S. citizenship, to vote in state and local races after losing a legal challenge earlier to require the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to add the state-specific requirement of proof of citizenship to the federal voter registration form for Kansas and Arizona. Voters using the federal voter registration form can only vote in federal races.

This “dual” election system is being litigated in Kansas, and on Monday, the U.S. District Court for the state of Kansas, once again, struck down that state’s proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration, finding that Secretary of State Kobach had failed during trial to show evidence of widespread voter fraud. Judge Rejects Kansas Law Requiring Voters to Show Proof of Citizenship:

The ruling was a blow to Mr. Kobach, a Republican who has emerged as a national figure on [voter suppression], a candidate for governor of Kansas and an ally of President Trump in part by claiming that large numbers of noncitizens have cast ballots in American elections. Experts on election law say that there is no evidence that voter fraud is a pervasive problem.

For Kansas voters, the decision means that in elections this fall, people will not be required to provide proof of their citizenship in order to register to vote, as required under a Kansas law passed in 2011.

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