The Maricopa County Elections Department will swap Sharpies for Pentel felt-tipped pens to ensure that the ink dries fast enough for tabulation machines to process in-person votes.
Wondering what type of pen to use on Election Day? Use the fast-drying felt-tip pens provided in the voting booths. Slow drying ink like ballpoint pens, can easily smear inside the ballot counting machine and cause delays at the polls. Learn more at https://t.co/clsyMr5dWD. pic.twitter.com/cTrCEWkAZk
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) July 27, 2022
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer toldAZ Family this week that Sharpies don’t dry as quickly as Pentel pens.
“If you’re voting on Election Day, we need that pen to dry quickly because you’re going to feed it directly into the tabulation machine that is there at the voting location,” Richer said.
The county’s switch comes months ahead of the two-year anniversary of “SharpieGate,” a viral belief that grew out of local voter complaints in the 2020 election that Sharpies used at voting locations to fill out ballots caused tabulation machines to struggle processing their ballots.
In May, Richer shared with KTAR News that SharpieGate-related concerns among voters were another reason they ceased using Sharpies.
“It’s small but emblematic of what we’re trying to do here,” said Richer.
Yet in June, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Clint Hickman said in a since-deleted interview with AZ Family that Sharpies were the manufacturer-recommended tool because of their quick drying time.
“Sharpies are recommended by the manufacturer because they provide the fastest-drying ink. The offset columns on ballots ensure that any bleed-through will not impact your vote,” said Hickman.
In the weeks following 2020 voters’ concerns that Sharpie ink invalidated ballots, Maricopa County asserted that Sharpies didn’t compromise ballot integrity and were “the best option” for their tabulation equipment. They also claimed that Sharpies were the “fastest drying ink” that “doesn’t smudge.”
Thank you to the 168,000 thousand people who cast their ballot in person! Sharpie pens were used at polling locations because they are the best option for our new tabulation equipment. Rumors that ballots that use sharpies don't count are NOT TRUE. pic.twitter.com/csxMRYvx1h
— Maricopa County Recorder's Office (@RecordersOffice) November 3, 2020
The county added that the tabulation machine manufacturers recommended the use of Sharpies over other writing instruments.
Sharpie markers were available at each Vote Center through the early voting period & Election Day by recommendation of the tabulation equipment manufacturer. It's the preferred and stress tested method to mark a ballot. See the response to @GeneralBrnovichhttps://t.co/wKopolSaVPhttps://t.co/OgUj81T0Fu
— Maricopa County Recorder's Office (@RecordersOffice) November 6, 2020
Richer pleaded with voters to use the felt-tipped pens, saying that other pens — like ballpoint — might cause residue buildup in the tabulating machines.
We will give ALL voters a special pen at voting locations. PLEASE PLEASE use this pen.
— Stephen Richer—Maricopa Cnty Recorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) July 26, 2022
The changes prompted some within GOP leadership to openly balk county protocols. Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward instructed her voters to use their own pens when voting.
Get out and vote. Don’t be bullied by poll workers. Use your own pen if you want. Vote for your choices. #SaveAmericahttps://t.co/DYEopB6HT4
State Representative and secretary of state candidate Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) announced that she would be using her own pen to vote in person.
I will be taking my own blue or black ballpoint ink pen to the polls when I vote in person. The tabulation equipment will not read red ink or a highlighter properly according to a FAQ I read online. https://t.co/DFavAWN7PK
Bolick later shared that poll workers were giving her reports of the pens bleeding through the ballots. The county has assured voters repeatedly over the past two years that bleed-through doesn’t affect the machines’ ability to read ballots.
Wondering what type of pen to use on Election Day? Use the fast-drying felt-tip pens provided in the voting booths. Slow drying ink like ballpoint pens, can easily smear inside the ballot counting machine and cause delays at the polls. Learn more at https://t.co/clsyMr5dWD. pic.twitter.com/cTrCEWkAZk
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) July 27, 2022
In response, Richer said that naysayers of the new pens were attempting to disrupt the primary. He advised voters to comply with their election workers by using whatever pen they’re given.
“It’s a primary. What the heck do you think we get out of giving people a special pen other than a smooth functioning election?” asked Richer. “Do you think we’re just asking you to use the Pentel pen to be funny? Good lord people.”
🧵Just texted a friend who sent out a message that she will ignore instructions, not use the given pen, and will use a ballpoint blue pen.
Let's call it what it is. She's trying to disrupt the primary.
Just use the darn pen given to you on election day.
— Stephen Richer—Maricopa Cnty Recorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) July 27, 2022
Primary Election Day is next Tuesday, August 2. Maricopa County drop box and voting locations are available online, and ballot tracking is available here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced a lawsuit against the Biden administration for regulations treating unfinished, non-functional firearm parts as complete firearms.
Brnovich led a 17-state coalition lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the new regulations. In a press release, Brnovich said that the Biden administration was undermining American tradition on private firearm manufacturing.
“The ATF is attempting to overshoot the authority granted to it by Congress,” stated Brnovich. “The rulemakings are unconstitutional, impractical, and would likely put a large number of parts manufacturers out of business.”
The lawsuit addressed the ATF’s final rule, “Definition of ‘Frame or Receiver’ and Identification of Firearms,” issued in April. The ATF claimed in these updated guidelines that past definitions didn’t adequately describe modern frames and receivers. Accordingly, those definitions were untenable when seeking to regulate firearm parts used to assemble privately made firearms (PMFs), colloquially termed “ghost guns.” Therefore, the ATF argued, the definition of frames and receivers should include firearm parts and their variants.
ATF final rule 2021R-05F, Definition of “Frame or Receiver” and Identification of Firearms, is available. The goal is to ensure proper marking, recordkeeping and traceability of all firearms manufactured, imported, acquired and disposed by FFLs. https://t.co/JR11JTLlhj#ATF50pic.twitter.com/8qB2erUJbM
The final rule will go into effect on August 24. The agency added that they will publish an additional final rule, which they characterized as a “stabilizing brace” to their guidelines, in December.
According to a new status report in a lawsuit we're watching, the ATF currently expects to publish the final "stabilizing brace" rule in December 2022: https://t.co/4mBColmTwHpic.twitter.com/jrPE8QEwUp
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2022
In the 168-page complaint, Brnovich asserted that the Biden administration regulations were “arbitrary, capricious, [and an] abuse of discretion” that violated multiple federal laws as well as the Constitution’s separation of powers, Fifth Amendment, Second Amendment, and First Amendment.
At the helm of the complaint are Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), affiliate nonprofits owned by North Dakota resident Eliezer Jimenez, and Morehouse Enterprises doing business as Bridge City Ordnance, a firearms dealer. The lawsuit insisted that the regulations would incur “ever encroaching, illegal, and unconstitutional infringements of their right to keep and bear arms.” It predicted that firearms dealers would be required to keep illegal records of privately-made firearms, and restructure their businesses entirely.
Joining Arizona are West Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Tuesday, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for requiring schools to adopt gender ideology practices in order to receive free or reduced lunch funds. About half of Arizona’s children rely on those meals.
The federal government supplements states with funds to provide free or reduced meals for low-income K-12 students. As AZ Free News reported, the Biden administration updated its Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) guidelines for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to clarify that protected classes within anti-discrimination policy included sexual orientation and gender identity. In the context of Biden’s correlating executive order, the guidelines would likely require schools to allow bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams open to gender identity.
Brnovich asserted in a press release that the Biden administration’s actions are unlawful.
“USDA Choice applies to beef at the market, not to our children’s restrooms,” said Brnovich. “This threat of the Biden administration to withhold nutritional assistance for students whose schools do not submit to its extreme agenda is unlawful and despicable.”
I brought Arizona into this lawsuit against Biden because the Left’s fascination with controlling our children is craven, lawless, and vile. @JoeBiden, using their well-being as pawns in your ideological game is wrong and unconstitutional. https://t.co/JB9gbWxJIb
Arizona’s lawsuit is part of a 22-state coalition led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery. The remainder of the coalition includes Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Altogether, the 22 states receive over $28.6 billion in SNAP benefits for over 15.4 million individuals.
The states’ complaint asserted that President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to rewrite federal law in order to align with his January 2021 executive order to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity.” The lawsuit further asserted that the USDA circumvented the mandatory legal process outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to implement their new guidelines.
The states described the new guidelines as “arbitrary, capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.” Specifically, their lawsuit alleged that the Biden administration failed to observe procedures required by law for guideline updates, misinterpreted Title IX, violated anti-commandeering and non-delegation doctrines, and violated the Constitution’s Spending Clause, First Amendment, Tenth Amendment, and separation of powers.
“To be clear, the States do not deny benefits based on a household member’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But the States do challenge the unlawful and unnecessary new obligations and liabilities that the Memoranda and Final Rule attempt to impose — obligations that apparently stretch as far as ending sex-separated living facilities and athletics and mandating the use of biologically inaccurate preferred pronouns,” read the complaint. “Collectively, the Memoranda and Final Rule inappropriately expand the law far beyond what statutory text, regulatory requirements, judicial precedent, and the U.S. Constitution permit.”
Brnovich’s decision to join the coalition lawsuit wasn’t the only action Arizona officials took in response to the USDA guidelines. Earlier this month, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) introduced legislation to nullify the gender ideology compliance requirement.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In a few short weeks, around 200 children will commit to an education that tends to stand out in this day and age: a “Christian, constitutional, classical” one.
These students of the new private school, Tipping Point Academy (TPA), are just a fraction of the thousands upended or seeking alternatives following public schools’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic: a demographic projected to increase due to the state’s recent and historic universalization of its school choice program, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs).
TPA was launched last March by Great State Alliance (GSA), a nonprofit advocating for constitutional liberty since the summer of 2020 when that organization launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
AZ Free News interviewed TPA Founder Jeremy Wood. He was unabashed about God being the core of TPA’s foundations and vision.
“We are working from the presupposition that the word of God is the roadmap for life and living,” he explained. “The Bible is God’s word and truth. It offers knowledge and wisdom and everything you need to be successful in life. Our classes are all taught from a Biblical worldview. Everything we teach is taught from that perspective. We believe that God created the world. He created science, math, astronomy, and the stars, and He made the world to work as a perfect mechanism.”
Wood clarified that core academics and God aren’t mutually exclusive. He explained that TPA operates from Christian premises rather than a secular one. Meaning: TPA offers a classical education that encompasses the likes of Socratic dialogue and natural law and excludes modern, controversial approaches like Critical Race Theory (CRT), Culturally Responsive Education (CRE), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), and Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE). Their version of education includes approaches like “The Noah Plan,” which incorporates the Bible in every subject.
“That’s the difference: the word of God is the foundation of our instruction. That’s not separate from our academics. We’re teaching the kids all the same academics they’re learning in public schools,” said Wood. “Our curriculum isn’t vastly different. It’s more of a philosophical approach for how we apply the methodology of teaching. We apply the principled approach which is based on teaching kids on how to become learners and critical thinkers.”
Wood said that TPA initially started as a desire to provide a better education for his own children. Then, he said that he recognized that education was a frontline in defending liberty, and his desire expanded to offering a better education to his community.
“The government was forcing these shutdowns and mandates, so we decided to stand up and create a solution that was faith-based and protective of our rights to assemble, to meet without fear of needing to shut down, or implement mask policies, or some other weird draconian measures to create barriers between us,” said Wood.
According to Wood, TPA uses a mastery learning model for teaching. Students must master content in each subject, which are “set up like mini dissertations” that require students to compile their research and writing to complete a notebook, or “mini thesis.” Additionally, TPA prioritizes hands-on, project-based learning. Wood cited an example of TPA students learning to apply for a job, use functional math, develop business plans, manage a business, run sales, and market products and services through the campus cafe.
“TPA is about creating critical thinkers,” stated Wood.
Another unique aspect about TPA: they expect parental involvement, almost to the point of a requirement. Wood emphasized that fathers were the key figures that TPA prioritizes for incorporation, but noted that anyone is open to serve through work like administrative support or classroom management. Parents are required to undergo a background check, just like all TPA staff.
“We’re not going to allow you to be a non-present parent. We expect volunteering,” said Wood. “We believe it’s our duty to partner with the parents. If you’re not going to be involved in volunteering, we’ll just tell you right now we don’t think you’re a fit for our school. If we were in it for the money, we’d be telling people everything they wanted to hear to get them in the door. We’re pretty clear on our methodology to keep like-minded people in our community.”
In just over a year of its existence, TPA has already experienced pushback from the establishment educational community.
Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) has been one of the first to target TPA. The anti-school choice organization’s director, Beth Lewis, characterized the private school as a money-grabbing scheme developed in response to the universalization of ESAs.
It’s no coincidence that schools like Tipping Point Academy are popping up all over AZ, ready to scoop up millions in taxpayer 💰 if universal voucher expansion isn’t stopped 😡 Their mission is to “develop tomorrow’s godly titans” pic.twitter.com/9BAiRleFlh
At $8,500 annually, TPA’s tuition falls below the average private school cost. Average tuition for private schooling in Arizona is nearly $10,300.
TPA’s enrollment ranges between 180 to 200 students, totaling between $1.5 and $1.7 million accrued from tuition. If every parent utilized the $7,000 maximum from the state’s ESA Program, that reduces tuition to $1,500 — which may be paid down for just over $100 on a monthly basis. Interested parents may also qualify for a TPA scholarship.
Wood responded that taxpayer dollars for education should be accessible to all taxpayers — regardless of their beliefs.
“Those are our taxpayer dollars as well. People are welcome to have their opinion. They don’t have to send their kids to our school,” said Wood. “We shouldn’t be discriminated against just because we want our kids to learn about our heritage, our values, our God, as well as the academics.”
Wood added that he hasn’t drawn “one penny” from his nonprofit for compensation. Rather, he said that he sacrificed his own business to launch TPA. The Wood family now lives well within their means, he says, to allow TPA to flourish.
“I think there’s the perception that we don’t want taxpayer dollars going to religion. Well, we’re taxpayers as well, so if this is what we believe we should have a right to allocate our dollars to the education of our choice,” said Wood. “I’m not doing this for a platform. I’m not doing this for fame or money. We’re just trying to create a solution for our families and families that think like us.”
From the very beginning, Wood said that the TPA team relied on God to provide. He shared that they prayed without ceasing for their ideal location where the school sits currently: the site of a former church. By the time Wood discovered the site, it was already under contract to become a multifamily residence. Yet he said they prayed, and three weeks later the property fell out of escrow. Wood then sent a letter to the property owners, explaining his reason for buying. The owners agreed, selling the property at a generous price that Wood described as “essentially the cost of the dirt.” They closed within 30 days on the deal, enabling the TPA team to prepare the location for this past school year.
“We came across a campus in the Northeast Valley, and we believed God was going to deliver this property for us. We didn’t know how,” said Wood. “It was a small, humble beginning.”
TPA’s enrollment is filling up this year but, according to Wood, the main reason that some parents say they can’t enroll their student is due to finances. He expressed hope that increasing awareness of the ESA Program expansion will remedy that issue.
Wood shared that some parents also prefer the frugality of charter schools. He touched on an issue reported by AZ Free News: since charter schools exist within the realm of public schools, they’re under stricter government regulation and susceptible to incidents that occur in public education.
“There’s a perception that they could jump to the charter school path, that there’s a little more autonomy there. People don’t understand a charter school is still a public school,” said Wood. “They’re still under the regulatory thumb of the state government in terms of health requirements. If the government starts pushing for mask or vaccine mandates, or hindering any medical freedoms, the charter schools are still going to have to comply with that.”
TPA will teach all grades, K-12, but enrollment is only open up to the 9th grade at present. The school plans to integrate its current students into high school before opening up its high school classrooms for enrollment.
TPA also launched a feeder school, or “K-prep,” enrolling under 20 children. Wood said their goal is to launch 100 schools over the next decade.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
If state lawmakers provided nearly 28 percent more funding to increase the salaries of Arizona’s public school teachers between 2018 and 2021, why did those teachers’ pay only go up 16.5 percent? And how did Arizona’s public schools spend billions of federal COVID funds?
Those are among the questions related to public school expenditures addressed in a policy report released this week by the Goldwater Institute which uses Arizona as a case study to delve into how school districts allocated COVID funds and why teachers have not seen meaningful pay increases dispute funding being made available to their district boards.
The report, “The COVID Funding Flood: How Spending Surged in Arizona’s Public School System Amid the Pandemic Era” by Matt Beienburg contains information which lawmakers, school district stakeholders, and the public can learn from when addressing future school funding issues.
Beienburg, Goldwater’s Director of Education Policy, provides data showing that the flood of taxpayer spending in response to COVID was “ostensibly meant to address the harms of the pandemic” but actually led to a massive overspending of federal funds, triggered a costly cycle of fiscal irresponsibility within K-12 public schools, and prioritized the interests of teachers’ unions “over student wellbeing.”
And during that time, the long-running pattern of public school districts increasing overall spending without meaningfully raising teacher salaries continued, according to Beienburg’s report. It should not be surprising then that district boards and administrations engaged in the same type of redirection when it came to COVID funds, the report notes.
Some key findings of the policy report are:
· Between fiscal years 2018 and 2021, Arizona lawmakers increased funding for teacher pay by 27.9 percent. But district schools provided only a 16.5 percent average teacher pay raise during that time, showing many district boards chose to use the funds for other expenditures and not what the legislators, teachers, and parents understood those funds were being used for.
· Arizona public school districts triggered a massive statewide enrollment decline of nearly 50,000 students as a result of their COVID mitigation protocols (i.e. closures, mask mandates) even as charter school enrollment rose and state and federal taxpayer funding for all public schools surged during the pandemic;
· Arizona school districts spent a significantly smaller proportion of their federal COVID funds (23.6 percent) compared to charter schools (31.3 percent) during the peak of the pandemic through June 2021. This was primarily due to a disproportionately high level of funding that districts have received from legislation but accumulated instead of spending at that time.
· The vast majority of public school districts’ expenditures of federal COVID funds for technology and school facilities upgrades occurred more than a full year after most public schools reopened for in-person learning. This suggests the funds are being primarily used for a non-COVID-related purpose. According to Beienburg’s report, the “COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of unprecedented spending on public K-12 schools, yet available evidence suggests that the bonanza of federal spending was almost entirely avoidable and that much of it will likely serve a very different purpose than the one originally sold to policymakers and the public.”
The report recommends that to avoid this sort of institutional failure in the future, policymakers in other states should seek to replicate the steps taken by the Arizona legislature to mandate reporting requirements on the use of all federal COVID stimulus funds.
A judge will decide next week whether Arizona voters will see an initiative on the Nov. 8 General Election ballot to approve what the Arizona Free Enterprise Club calls “radical” election procedure changes.
Judge Joseph Mikitish of the Maricopa County Superior Court has set Aug. 5 for a hearing on an Order to Show Cause as to why he should not grant a request by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) to invalidate more than half the signatures submitted earlier this month on initiative petitions for the proposed Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections Act (AFFE Act).
Mikitsh’s hearing stems from a lawsuit filed July 22 by AFEC, which argues the AFFE Act would upend Arizona’s election administration and voter registration laws, curtail current safeguards with the initiative and referendum process, and reduce candidate contribution limits while promoting more taxpayer subsidies to certain ‘Clean Elections’ candidates.
According to AFEC’s lawsuit, the political committee Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections (ADRC Action) filed an application in February with Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs for a serial number necessary to commence a petition drive in hopes of getting the Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections Act on the statewide ballot for the 2022 General Election.
Then on July 7, Hobbs was presented with nearly 52,000 petitions sheets containing a purported 475,290 signatures of qualified electors, of which at least 237,645 must be deemed valid to get the AFFE Act on the general election ballot.
But state law requires that all circulators who are not Arizona residents along with all paid circulators regardless of residency must register as circulators before they may begin collecting petition signatures. The circulators must also affix their unique circulator registration ID number to each petition they circulate.
AFEC contends, however, that more than 1,000 of the circulators who collected signatures for the AFFE Act initiative were non-compliant with at least one state election law. Some of the compliance issues involved incomplete registration forms while other circulators allegedly did not write their “full and correct registration number on both sides of the sheet,” as required by law.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring Hobbs to disqualify all petition signatures obtained by circulators who were not registered in compliance with state law. It also asks Mikitish to bar the state’s 15 county recorders from verifying any signatures on petitions in which the circulator’s registration number was not properly affixed.
“Petition signatures obtained by individuals who failed to strictly comply with
one or more provisions of applicable law are legally insufficient,” the lawsuit states. “Injunctive remedies are necessary to prevent irreparable injury to the
Plaintiffs and to ensure that the Defendant fully and effectively discharges the duties imposed upon her by state law.”
The lawsuit does not supply a tally of the disputed signatures, but AFEC’s Executive Director Scot Mussi said Monday that well over half of the signatures submitted by ADRC Action were collected in violation of Arizona law.
“That should be more than enough to invalidate this initiative,” Mussi said.
Among the provisions of the Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections Act is one which would restrict legislative election audits such as the one Senate President Karen Fann approved last year. It would also allow same-day voter registration
In addition, it would prohibit any law being enacted calling for voters to show identification when dropping off a mail-in ballot at a polling station or election center.
Another provision of the Act is a requirement that elections officials accept tribal IDs when registering voters and confirming their voting eligibility, even though county recorders do not have access to tribal membership databases.
Election-related legal challenges are heard by the courts on an expedited basis. Mikitish’s show cause hearing comes more than three months before the Nov. 8 election, but the case must be resolved by the end of August to ensure the counties have sufficient time for printing and delivery of early ballots and ballots which are sent to voters under the Uniformed and OverseasCitizens Absentee Voting Act.
Even if the AFEC legal challenge fails, many elections observers doubt that voters will approve the initiative. The problem, they note, is that the Act includes so many different provisions that voters will find enough objectionable that they will reject the whole initiative.
Co-plaintiffs in the case are AFEC’s Mussi and Aimee Yentes, both of whom are registered voters in Arizona. Meanwhile, Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections (ADRC Action) has been named as a Real Party in Interest in the lawsuit.
AFEC is an Arizona nonprofit corporation organized and operated for the promotion of social welfare, within the meaning of IRS Code of 1986, section 501(c)(4). The organization engages in public education and advocacy in support of free markets and economic growth in the State of Arizona.
