by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Sep 14, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Arizona voters should be able to have complete trust in their elected officials to conduct themselves honorably, ethically, and lawfully in every matter concerning our sacred elections.
Too bad Secretary of State Adrian Fontes never got the memo.
In the midst of firing off baseless attacks against our organization after a court ruled in our favor against his radical Elections Procedures Manual, Fontes found a new way to violate the ethics of his office…and maybe the law.
Last week, in an unexpected, politically motivated, and potentially unlawful use of taxpayer dollars, Fontes filed a brief at the Arizona Supreme Court in an effort to ensure that votes for Prop 140 are counted in the November General Election—regardless of its eventual legality.
Think about that for a moment. By filing this brief, Adrian Fontes—the top election official in our state—unequivocally signaled his position that 40,000 duplicate signatures should be ignored and counted in favor of passing Prop 140. In short, this means that for Fontes, the ends justify the means to ensure that Arizona adopts a California-style election scheme that includes ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries. But that shouldn’t come as much of surprise…because it’s exactly what he’s been working for…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Sep 1, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Arizona, we have a problem. Apparently, the group behind Proposition 140—a ballot initiative aimed to bring California-style elections to our state—got very creative in their signature gathering efforts. In fact, you could say that in many ways, they excelled in duplicating their work. And that’s exactly why Prop 140 should be invalidated.
Back in July, the special interests behind the idea to bring jungle primaries and ranked choice voting to Arizona submitted signatures with the Arizona Secretary of State to qualify the so-called “Make Elections Fair Act” for the November General Election. Just a couple weeks later, a lawsuit was filed after it was determined that a large portion of their signatures were collected in violation of state law. And late last week, we received some good news. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the signature challenge lawsuit against Prop 140—which was facing a potential deadline due to the printing of ballots—may continue to ensure that the 40,000 duplicate signatures submitted by the Prop 140 committee are examined and removed from the final tally.
Yes, you read that right. The group that supposedly wants to “make elections fair” is content to do so by counting duplicate signatures (i.e. voters that signed more than once). What does that say about the true nature of this initiative?
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Aug 20, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Every election cycle, out-of-state special interest groups spend millions of dollars in Arizona to buy their initiatives onto our ballot. It often takes just a couple million dollars—pocket change to California billionaires—to pay a few hundred circulators to collect signatures. And they usually flood the streets with paid circulators in just Phoenix and Tucson, stripping all other Arizonans from having a voice in the process.
Not every state has a citizen initiative process. In fact, less than half (20) allow for citizen initiative amendments to state law. Arizona is even more unique because in 1998, the Arizona voters amended the constitution with the “Voter Protection Act,” preventing the legislature from amending any measure passed on the ballot unless they obtain a ¾ majority and the amendment “furthers the purpose” of the initiative. In effect, this means that anything passed on the ballot must go back to the ballot for future changes, much like a constitutional amendment.
Of those 20 states with a citizen initiative process, 11 have a signature distribution requirement. This means that in those states, the signatures cannot all be collected in just one city or major county, like they currently can here in Arizona. Instead, initiative proponents need to gain support from diverse regions of the state.
It’s time for Arizona to join them, and we can by adopting a Geographic Distribution requirement for signatures…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Aug 17, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The people of Arizona deserve elections that are free, fair, transparent, and lawful. As the top election official in our state, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes should be working every day to ensure this happens. And he should be providing an Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that gives impartial direction to county recorders to ensure uniform and correct implementation of election law.
This shouldn’t be that hard…or controversial.
But Adrian Fontes took it upon himself to produce one of the most radical EPMs in Arizona’s history. In fact, several of the “rules” in his EPM even go as far as to criminalize activity that is protected under the First Amendment—creating an unconstitutional chilling effect on protected political speech. Apparently, Adrian Fontes hasn’t read the United States Constitution or the Arizona Constitution.
Because of this illegal EPM, we sued him. And last week, a Maricopa County Superior Court ruled in our favor, finding that Fontes’ EPM contains speech restrictions that violate the Arizona Constitution, misstatements and modifications of statutes, and failures to identify distinctions between guidance and legal mandates.
So, how did Fontes respond? Did he realize the error of his ways? Will he now properly understand his role and amend the EPM to align with the law? No. Instead Adrian Fontes has responded how you would expect someone to respond when he knows he can’t win. He’s resorted to maligning our organization in the media…
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by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jul 26, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
The surge of border crossings continues. There is an election in just over 3 months. Many voters want to know—can illegals vote?
Obviously, it’s illegal for non-citizens to vote. The real question is whether voters must prove their citizenship prior to voting. This discussion has culminated in the U.S. House passing the SAVE Act earlier this month. But with near unanimous Democrat opposition, a federal proof of citizenship requirement has stalled in Congress.
As both a border and swing state, Arizona is center stage in this national discussion. Even Elon Musk chimed in by sharing an image of our voter registration form that clearly states “proof of citizenship” is not required to vote.
However, Arizona has done far more than any other state to tackle the issue of illegals voting.
In Arizona, if someone registers without proof of citizenship, they are registered as a “Federal Only Voter” and they receive a different ballot with only federal races. This means that: 1) we know exactly who and how many have registered without proof; and 2) they don’t get to influence any of our state or local elections.
In all 49 other states, proof of citizenship is not only not required, but they are all blended onto one list, and they get to vote in every election. So those states have no idea who or how many there even are! Their problem could be far bigger, and they would never know it.
Now with the decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit last week, Arizona will stop even more illegals from voting, thanks to a bill the Arizona Free Enterprise Club authored in 2022…
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