Voting Rights Groups Challenge Arizona’s New Jim Crow 2.0 Voter Suppression Law

Howard Fischer reports, Voter registration groups seeking to block new law:

Groups involved with signing up people to vote are asking a federal judge to block a new law that could leave some who move with no registration at all.

And the law could make felons out of volunteers who get people to register.

Attorney Daniel Arrellano said SB 1260 requires a county recorder to cancel someone’s registration on learning that person is registered to vote somewhere else.

Only thing is, he told U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow in filing a lawsuit challenging the law, there’s nothing illegal about being registered in more than one place. He said that happens when people move because they don’t automatically cancel their old registration.

What is illegal, Arellano said, is voting in more than one place.

From the Arizona Secretary of State‘s website:

Update Your Voter Information

You should update your voter information if any of the following apply:

• • • You recently moved to a new address
    • Your name has been legally changed
    • You would like to change your political party affiliation
    • Online – If you have an Arizona Driver License and/or an Arizona non-operating I.D. card issued by the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) you may update your voter registration online.

1. 1. Log on to Service Arizona(link is external)
   2. Select your language preference, then click “Begin/Update Voter Registration”
   3. Verify your voter eligibility
   4. Enter your information in the required fields
   5. Update your address if you have moved, otherwise select No on question A & B and click continue.
   6. You can now update any other information that has changed, including your name or party preference

If you are having trouble logging in to the Service Arizona website, you can print off a Voter Registration Form (PDF) and fill it out with your new information. After you finish, mail the completed form to your County Recorder’s office and your information will be updated.

• • • By Mail – You can either print off a form online (PDF) or request that a registration form be mailed to you from your County Recorder. After completing the voter registration form, mail it to your county recorder’s office.
    • ​In-Person – You may visit your County Recorder’s office and fill out a registration form in person.
    • Address Confidentiality Program Members – You should update your voter registration through the ACP process.

After you have successfully updated your registration to vote you will receive an updated voter registration card in the mail within 4-6 weeks.

Howard Fischer continues:

The problem, he said, comes when each recorder discovers a registration from elsewhere — and each cancels the registration.

“This double cancellation could result in a person being suddenly stripped of any active voter registration and being removed from all active early voting lists, without any notice whatsoever’’ from either county, Arellano wrote. “And even if a voter’s registrations are not all canceled, nothing in the Cancellation Provision prevents the cancellation of the voter’s registration where the voter currently resides, is eligible and intends to vote — a scenario that could also lead to disenfranchisement without notice.’’

He pointed out that the law also has a provision to allow outside third parties to provide recorders with “credible information that a person has registered to vote in a different county.’’

This was a sop to the GQP’s voter suppression organizations, in particular True The Vote, a Houston-based vote-monitoring initiative committed to stopping voter fraud with a “horrendous record of filing inaccurate voter registration challenges.” And the RNC’s voter suppression program, Warning! Beware The Trump Big Lie Election Denier GQP Poll Observers In Pima County (excerpt):

This next part of the newsletter is what really caught my attention, and pertains to my earlier post.

The TRIDENT team
Trident—’power and authority’—teams are ready to be Poll Observers throughout Pima County. We have over seven hundred (700) people in our newly adopted scheduling package who will be scheduling their shifts this week to observe the voting process throughout Pima County during this early voting and through to Election Day. Our poll observers have been trained in a classroom setting and will have received the legal briefing from the Republican National Committee. The Pima County Republican Party will have maximum coverage by poll observers in the 2022 Primary Election! Our Trident Teams will be our eyes on the process to ensure free and fair elections in Pima County. We are more prepared than ever to ensure that you can trust that your ballot has been cast—and, cast properly.

This is the first election since the early 1980’s when Republican voter suppression led to a consent decree against the RNC which prohibited Republicans from engaging in what they euphemestically called “election protection.” That consent decree was lifted a few years ago, but the Coronavirus pandemic disrupted their efforts in 2020.

Now the Trump Big Lie election deniers are out in force in 2022 to harass and intimidate not just voters, but also poll workers and election workers. They are looking to disrupt the election.

About this RNC poll observer training, from my earlier post:

Jen Fifield adds, GOP poll watcher training casts unfounded suspicion on Arizona elections:

The Republican National Committee is telling potential Arizona polling place observers that there are “festering problems” in how elections are run, such as security issues with vote-counting machines and problems with voter rolls, as it trains them for the state’s upcoming primary election.

The RNC training delivers the message that the “2020 election had serious problems,” worrying experienced former election officials and lawyers who have trained observers in the past and who say the point of training should be simply to encourage observers to watch for violations of law at the polls without disturbing the peace.

Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, who as an attorney led Republican observer training in the 2000s, said the messaging concerns him because his focus was always on providing a straightforward picture of what was legal and what was not at the polls.

“It’s not about kind of ginning people up, which is what that sounds like,” Gates said. “That’s the narrative, though.”

* * *

Tammy Patrick, who helped both political parties in Maricopa County train observers for years when she was the county’s compliance officer, called the RNC’s messaging “deeply problematic” because it primes observers to come in believing there are massive problems with the system.

“If you are pre-positioning the observers that there is all this criminal activity they need to uncover, they are going to view what they are seeing from a completely skewed viewpoint,” she said.

Patrick said the intentions of these new poll observers worries her. “They think they are going to find the body,” she said.

Howard Fishcer continues:

That, Arellano said will “enable targeted voter suppression’’ to cancel voter registrations, even if there is no evidence an individual intends to vote in more than one place.

One example, he said, would be students who register to vote where they go to school but haven’t actively canceled the registration where they were living before. Arellano said that could pave the way for groups to seek to cancel the registrations of all college students, both where they were living and where they are living now.

Then there are the provisions that make it a felony to help people register to vote if they’re already registered somewhere else. That gets back to the fact that many people, on moving, whether into Arizona or within the state, don’t automatically notify the recorder before they move.

Arellano said that creates problems for the groups he represents — Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, Voto Latino and Priorities U.S.A. — because their staff and volunteers help register voters.

The way the law is worded, he said, makes a felon out of anyone who does voter registration if they do not first confirm that person has canceled a prior registration. Arellano said that will deter voter registration efforts “and new Arizona residents will have less support in registering to vote and voting.’’

There are other legal traps for the unaware, he said.

Under the terms of SB 1260, anyone who receives an early ballot belonging to a former resident must write “Not at this address’’ on the ballot and place it back in the mail. That, he said, creates a new legal duty for people to monitor their mail and take action on early ballots that do not belong to them.

“In other words, an Arizona resident who receives an early ballot meant for a former resident and who simply ignores the early ballot (without marking it or placing it back in the mail) would be in violation of Arizona law,’’ Arellano told the judge. And that, he said, “effectively conscripts Arizona residents into helping the state purge their neighbors from the voting rolls.’’

Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, [the POS] who crafted the measure, said there is no penalty on those who simply choose to ignore the mailing.

Arellano said the felony provision would apply to a parent who forwards an early ballot to a child attending school in another state if that parent did not know the child has registered to vote there, “even if the student has no intention to, and never actually does, vote in two places.’’

Mesnard, promoting his measure earlier this year to the House Committee on Government and Elections, said that won’t be a problem. He said prosecutors would have to prove a parent knew the child had registered to vote elsewhere.

“We’re not trying to catch any old person who makes an innocent mistake,’’ Mesnard said. “We’re trying to catch somebody who knowingly is facilitating fraud.’’

As to evidence of a problem of people getting early ballots who are registered elsewhere, Mesnard acknowledged he has no first-hand knowledge.

“I’ve had folks come to me and insist this has happened,’’ he said.

“I’ve not gone to investigate,’’ he continued. But Mesnard said his legislation will “make it clear’’ what the law requires.

Snow has set no date for a hearing on the legal challenge.