The GQP War On Voting: 2-Prong Attack On Early Voting Used By Up To 90% Of Voters

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of a 100 election bills that have been introduced in the Arizona legislature this year by the MAGA/QAnon election deniers promoting Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him through fraud.

This week the bills that have been run through the Senate Government Committee chaired by QAnon Queen and election denier Sen. Kelly Townsend will come up for a vote in the Senate. We will find out how many of these bills have the unanimous support of all 16 Republicans in the Sedition Caucus. It only takes one to vote “nay” and cause a tie vote to kill a bill.

Here is a review of things to come from Sunday Square Off.

Arizona elections bills face moment of truth this week in state Senate, per @hankdeanlight. Hank told us why on #SundaySquareOff. https://t.co/PE0BGeprlS

— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) February 28, 2022

Donald Trump’s Big Lie focused heavily on early voting in states, particularly early voting by mail. He presented zero evidence in over 60 lawsuits, including at least 8 in Arizona (I lost track) of any fraud. And yet the cult members of the MAGA/QAnon personality cult of Donald Trump believe his bogus bullshit because, let’s just say it, they are deranged and delusional members of a cult.

The Sedition Caucus of MAGA/QAnon cult members have a 2-prong assault on early voting in Arizona. They will try to restrict early voting through legislation if they can, and failing that, they have filed a lawsuit trying to end early voting entirely, hoping that the Ducey-packed Arizona Supreme Court will eventually rule in its favor (this stategy has not worked in other contexts).

Not to be outdone by the Senate, the cult members of the MAGA/QAnon personality cult of Donald Trump in the House got a head start on Monday.

The Associated Press reports, Arizona House sends measure boosting voter ID to ballot:

The Republican-controlled Arizona House on Monday joined the GOP-led state Senate in approving a measure that will ask voters in November to drastically boost identification requirements needed for in-person and mail voting in the battleground state.

Note: Voters voting on this ballot measure will NOT be subject to these new identification requirements. Sort of ironic.

Arizona already has very strong voter ID laws, but Republicans contend they leave room for fraud or illegal votes. Democrats say the measure and many of the scores of election bills making their way through the Legislature this year are efforts to suppress the vote in one of the key states former President Donald Trump lost in 2020.

The ballot referral bill approved Monday changes the popular vote-by-mail system used by 90% of the state’s voters by adding a requirement that voters include their date of birth and early voting number along with their signature on their return ballots. Voters currently just sign their name, and county officials compare that to signatures they have on file with verified voter registration documents.

Note: This creates three points of error to reject ballots: signature, date of birth and voting number. A fair number of voters forget to sign their ballot now. There is a separate bill that will eliminate the ability to “cure” a ballot by the county contacting the voter who forgets to sign his or her ballot envelope to have them come in within 5 days to sign their ballot envelope. Now they are adding date of birth and voting number to create more potential points of error to reject a ballot. This is voter disenfranchisement.

Democrats said that Republicans were downplaying the impact of the law, noting that a similar Texas law that passed last year has led to hundreds of valid mail ballot requests being rejected. Democratic Rep. Mitzi Epstein of Tempe said the rejection rate had jumped from 10% to 35%. [This is over one-third of all ballots].

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1497966733910495236?cxt=HHwWiMCywdqz7MkpAAAA

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1497374834585743362?cxt=HHwWhMC98dCe38cpAAAA

“It is a problem to take multiple pages of voting instruction and reduce it to ‘voter ID,’” Epstein said. “That’s not what this bill is.”

The referral mirrors a voter initiative that Republican lawmakers and conservative groups began collecting signatures for last August. The vote negates the need to gather those signatures, since it now will automatically be on the ballot.

Once again, the authoritarian GQP-controlled Arizona legislature saves right-wing organizations the time, effort, and money it takes to put a measure on the ballot which they support, while at the same time they enact onerous rules which make your constitutional right to citizens inititatives damn near impossible to do, effectively nullifying the constitutional right to citizens initaitives for things they do not support. This is GQP authoritarianism writ large.

You should vote against this Big Lie ballot measure. Tell the MAGA/QAnon cult to go stuff it.

The second prong of the GQP attack on early voting is a lawsuit trying to end early voting entirely. You should keep in mind that the Republican Party previously has always been a big promoter of absentee voting, and it was a Republican-controlled legislature, with the Support of Democrats, that enacted Arizona’s “no excuse” early voting by mail system 30 years ago. It is so popular with voters that over over 80 percent (90 percent in 2020) vote early by mail. Virtually all local elections are now conducted by mail-only elections. This has never been a problem in Arizona until Donald Trump told his MAGA/QAnon cult followers that early voting by mail is bad.

The Associated Press reports, GOP lawsuit looks to throw out absentee voting in Arizona:

The Arizona Republican Party is asking the state Supreme Court to strike down the vote-by-mail system used by almost 90% of voters in a battleground state that will be crucial to determining which party controls the U.S. Senate after the 2022 election.

The lawsuit filed Friday argues absentee voting is unconstitutional and asks the justices to get rid of it or at least eliminate the no-excuse absentee balloting system Arizona adopted in 1991 and has steadily expanded ever since.

“In-person voting at the polls on a fixed date (election day) is the only constitutional manner of voting in Arizona,” lawyers for the GOP wrote in their petition to the Arizona Supreme Court.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1498436744030662656?cxt=HHwWgMC55fKRwsspAAAA

Seriously? For years when Arizona had absentee voting, the Arizona Republican Party would send postcards to all registered Republican voters that they could use to request an absentee ballot. Then in 1991, they made absentee voting “no excuse” early voting by mail. They later added the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL). So are you telling me that every election in my lifetime has been unconstitutional because Republican voters were voting by absentee ballots or voting early with mail-in ballots? Or is this another case of IOKIYAR, and now we say it’s not OK?

The lawsuit comes amid GOP efforts on many fronts to remake the system for casting and counting votes as former President Donald Trump repeats the lie that he lost the 2020 election because of fraud in Arizona and other battleground states.

It is modeled on a similar lawsuit in Pennsylvania, where a court in January struck down the state’s two-year-old mail voting law. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has appealed to the state Supreme Court.

So are you telling me this another “Kraken” lawyer lawsuit? Because lead counsel for the Arizona GQP is Alexander Kolodin, who was one of the “Kraken” lawyers in some of the failed lawsuits in Arizona to overturn the 2020 election results. How has this guy not been disbarred at this point? (Because the Arizona State Bar is weak and ineffectual and will not do anything to antagonize the GQP-controlled legislature, out of fear of retribution. Hello, the GQP is doing it anyway. Senate OKs making State Bar membership optional).

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1498478484452253697?cxt=HHwWgoC9lcGP1cspAAAA

The Arizona Republican Party and its combative chairwoman, Kelli Ward, have been at the forefront of Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results and block the certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory. The latest suit was filed by the state GOP and Yvonne Cahill, the party’s secretary. Ward is not named as a plaintiff.

Several bills introduced in the Legislature aim to eliminate or severely restrict mail balloting, though some look unlikely to succeed due to opposition from one or more Republicans. Lawmakers voted Monday to put a question on the 2022 ballot that, if approved, would require voters to write their birthday and either a driver’s license number or partial Social Security number on mail ballots starting in 2024.

Real concern for identity theft there.

The suit drew swift condemnation from Democrats who said the GOP is attacking a secure and popular voting method.

“I look forward to once again defending the voters of Arizona and defeating this ridiculous attempt to undermine our elections,” said Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat and a defendant in the case.

The lawsuit is based on lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, said Raquel Terán, a state senator and chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party.

“So this is yet another attempt by the Arizona Republicans to make it harder for people to vote,” Terán said.

The lawsuit cites a provision of the state constitution outlining the procedures for citizens to propose their own laws. The constitution says initiatives are decided in “such manner that the electors may express at the polls their approval or disapproval of (a) measure.”

The inclusion of the phrase “at the polls” means the constitution requires ballots to be cast only at in-person polling places, attorneys from the firm Davillier Law Group argued.

This is a bullshit argument.

They ask the justices to throw out all early voting procedures. If the justices are unwilling to go that far, the GOP asks the court to roll back the expansion of no-excuse absentee voting since 1991, eliminate ballot drop boxes, prohibit ballot counting before election day, or prohibit voting absentee on initiatives and referenda.

Full blown GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression. Why not just ask the court for what you really want? Only white Christian Republicans are allowed to vote. Try being honest for a change, you owe a duty of candor to the court.

The GOP did not challenge absentee voting for members of the military, which the state is required to allow by federal law.

In 2020, 90% of Arizona voters used a ballot that arrived in the mail, which can be returned through the U.S. Postal Service, an official drop box run by county election officials or to a polling place. The ballots are collected at a central warehouse, where workers confirm the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope matches signatures on file to verify the vote is legitimate.

There has been no widespread fraud.

The earlier Associated Press report continues:

The lawsuit and the election bills come as the GOP works on many fronts to remake the system for casting and counting votes following Trump’s loss, despite the lack of any evidence that there were any major problems in the election.

The House also approved four other election bills Monday, including one that applies to people who register using a federal form where they sign under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen and entitled to vote. Those voters are only allowed to vote in federal races until they provide county election officials with proof of citizenship.

Fake GQP Elector and Trump troll farm operator Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the bill’s sponsor, said the number of people using the federal form without providing proof of citizenship had jumped between 2018 and 2020.

“So clearly this is a trend that is increasing,” Hoffman said. “This bill ensues that there is maximum flexibility to provide documentary proof of citizenship, but we don’t want foreign interference in our elections.”

This guy operates a Russian-style troll farm of disinformation in Arizona, amplifying Russian disinformation. You want to talk about foreign interference, asshole? See, Turning Point Action (USA) Creates Its Own Russian Troll Farm In Phoenix. And how about your participation in the seditious insurrection to overturn the 2020 election? The DOJ should prosecute every one of you fake GQP electors.

Hoffman’s proposal bars voters who registered using the federal form from voting in presidential elections or getting a mail ballot. They still can cast ballots in congressional elections.

This makes absolutely no sense under federalism.

It requires county recorders to check databases to try to prove if someone is a citizen, and requires them to send any doubtful registrations to the attorney general for investigation and possible prosecution.

The measure also adds requirements for registration using state forms, including requiring voters to include their place of birth and a verified residence address. And it makes it a felony for an election official to register someone who does not qualify.

Democrats noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona could not reject registrations using the federal form, in an opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon.

In other words, this GQP fake elector is trying to relitigate a case the U.S. Supreme Court has already decided. Fuck off.

“This bill … is not going anywhere,” said Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, a Democrat from Cashion. “It’s going to end up at the Supreme Court, and they’re going to bat it right (back) at us like they’ve done time and again.”

The other three election bills passed the House on Monday with only Republican votes.

They include one that adds more partisan election observers [True The Vote GQP voter intimidation] and access to voter rolls, and another that requires voter lists to be published before and after each election.

The House also approved, along party lines, a measure that bars settlements of any lawsuit that challenges any Arizona election law.

Republican Rep. Jaqueline Parker of Mesa said she added one exception on Monday at the request of GOP Gov. Doug Ducey: A settlement can be approved if the attorney general, secretary of state, House speaker and Senate president approve, and if the Legislative Council, which provides legal advice and bill drafting to lawmakers, OKs it after a public hearing.

In other words, they do not want a Superior Court judge signing off on a settlement agreement. They want to take everything up to the Ducey-packed Arizona Supreme Court. “Damnit, we packed the court and we expect them to deliver for us!”

It’s going to get a lot worse this week unless you contact your state representatives and demand that they kill these Big Lie election bills from the MAGA/QAnon cult election deniers.