by Corinne Murdock | Oct 7, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Republican Party of Arizona (RPAZ) filed two lawsuits against Maricopa County over alleged election transparency violations and unnecessary poll worker burdens. Early voting for the general election begins next Wednesday, and there’s about a month until Election Day.
In a joint statement, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and RPAZ Chairwoman Kelli Ward expressed concern that the county’s actions would shut poll workers out of the election process.
“With midterms just 34 days away, Arizonans deserve basic transparency about how their elections will be conducted,” stated the two women. “This legal offensive is the latest step in Republicans’ ongoing efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in Arizona.”
The lawsuits concern the GOP’s unfulfilled records requests pertaining to poll worker staffing and the county staffing more Democratic than Republican poll workers for the primary election: 857 to 712. The RNC expressed concern that 11 vote centers at the time had no Republican poll workers, and that less than 30 percent of Central Counting Place Boards workers were Republicans while nearly 50 percent were Democrats.
The first lawsuit contended that Maricopa County wasn’t fulfilling records requests . The RNC documented that they submitted their first records request on September 9, then a follow-up records request on September 29 asking for records not fulfilled within their initial request. The lawsuit claimed that the county provided an indirect fulfillment of the initial request: the county forwarded the RNC a copy of an email originally sent from elections day and emergency voting director Scott Jarrett to a third party, which contained “narrative information” and addressed some, but not all, of the issues inquired about by the RNC.
Apart from that email, the lawsuit claimed that the county hadn’t provided all of the public records within both requests.
The second lawsuit contended that Maricopa County violated the state’s Equal Access Statutes and the Election Procedures Manual (EPM) during the primary election, and that the county would likely commit further violations for the upcoming general election. The GOP groups declared that the county established onerous working conditions for this election year: up to 14-hour work days throughout the early voting period, including weekends; a lack of a “bullpen” of election workers to backfill “foreseeable attritions” of the “inhospitable work conditions.”
According to that lawsuit, these working conditions caused over 500 election workers to quit their positions before the primary election. The lawsuit requested that the county reform its working conditions in order to align with election law and the EPM.
“Maricopa County nevertheless failed to meet the requirements of the Equal Access Statutes and the equal representation requirements of the EPM during the 2022 primary election,” stated the lawsuit.
On Wednesday, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates dismissed the RNC-RPAZ lawsuits as a “political stunt.” Richer and Gates insisted that it was “absurd” that they, as registered Republicans, would attempt to keep Republicans out of elections. In contradiction to what the second lawsuit stated, Richer and Gates claimed that the lawsuits don’t allege violation of election laws or procedures.
“We contact everyone on the lists the parties provide us,” stated the pair. “Maricopa County’s temporary election worker hiring practices ensure bipartisan representation throughout the election process and follow requirements established in state law and the Election Procedures Manual.”
The county also conflicted with the RNC’s timeline of its records request, contending that the RNC filed its records request on Monday.
Richer projected that the lawsuit would end in another legal victory for Maricopa County, adding to their current winning streak.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Aug 31, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Arizona voters can breathe a sigh of relief. On Friday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision on our Free Enterprise Club lawsuit that concluded the radical “Free and Fair” election initiative lacked enough lawful signatures to qualify for the ballot. Securing this legal victory was not an easy feat, and the final days of litigation were far more suspenseful than they should have been.
In fact, the trial court came very close to letting the other side steal victory by initially adopting their lawyer’s rigged methodology to calculate the final number of valid signatures that would have snuck the measure back onto the ballot…
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by Terri Jo Neff | Jul 27, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
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.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Jul 22, 2022 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
The debate over election fraud versus voter suppression is high-stakes and high-intensity. Trump loyalists insist the election was stolen, mechanically rigged, and rife with fraudulent actors. Democrats continue to insist that fraud never happens, an argument easily swatted away by the existence of thousands of documented incidents.
But Democrats have a point in that the problematic behaviors—bulk mail voting, ballot harvesting, and related practices—were permitted by law in most states. That means, according to the “fact checkers,” all reasonable people must agree that there was no fraud.
Trump fought the wrong war at the wrong time. While he was ranting about corrupt voting machines, rogue election workers, and a cascade of assorted allegations, Democrats in the last two elections were cleverly creating election rules intended to generate a permanent majority.
Trump and his supporters were never able to prevail in a court of law. In the end, they were outsmarted and lost the election to a pathetically weak candidate.
Attorney General Bill Barr was an astute, loyal adviser to Trump during the election. Unfortunately, his advice to stop exploring rabbit holes was not heeded. Yet he would see the traps the Democrats were setting in September 2020.
Bulk mail balloting is not your father’s absentee voting, he explained on CNN. “Instead of requests coming from a specific address, we are now going to mail them to everyone on a voter list, when everyone knows the voter lists are inaccurate.”
“People who should get them don’t get them…and people who get them are not the right people. They are people who have replaced the previous occupant…and sometimes multiple ballots come to the same address with several generations of previous occupants.” That’s no way to run an election, he concluded.
He’s right. For generations, America had voting laws that produced fair, reliable results. The laws required that all voters register beforehand and present a secure ID. All votes were cast confidentially. Absolutely no intimidation or persuasion was allowed in or near a polling station.
Importantly, there was a strict chain of custody to make sure that there could be no tampering and that all legally cast ballots would be counted. Voting was done mostly on site although accommodations were made for those unable to vote in person on election day.
That was the American way of conducting elections. Now all that has changed. Millions of ballots are sent automatically to voters just because they didn’t opt out of receiving one. Nobody knows what happens to them until they are returned.
Helpful party workers can collect them, offer aid with voting, and often leave them anonymously in drop boxes. The notoriously unreliable signature verification often is the only ID required.
Today, this is all perfectly legal. Of course, it’s illegal to vote a ballot not your own, to unduly influence another voter, or to fail to deliver certain ballots. But with bulk mail voting, none of this is detectable.
Once a mail-in ballot is opened and separated from its envelope, any possible proof of fraud is lost, no matter how many audits and investigations are performed. We have a voting system obviously prone to fraud and coercion yet opaque to any misdeeds committed within it.
Arizona voters, thanks to their legislature, will have a chance this year to close one gaping flaw in our system by approving a requirement of voter ID for bulk mail voters. There is no coherent reason to require ID at the polls while bulk mail voters get a pass.
Although the media continue to insist that those who support voter ID are “vote suppressors,” Americans smell a rat. According to a Quinnipiac poll, only 60% of voters overall believed the last election to be legitimate.
In the end, it may not matter how much “provable fraud” can be discovered. So long as we have a slipshod, non-secure system like bulk-mail voting, it will be difficult to convince voters of the integrity of their vote.
In a closely divided country, it is critical that citizens have confidence in elections and the legitimacy of the government. As Bill Barr says, “we are playing with fire.”
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jul 16, 2022 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Last week, the Biden Administration officially filed a lawsuit against Arizona over HB2492, which bolsters safeguards to our voter registration process to require proof of citizenship ensuring only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.
To many, it sounds absurd. Not HB2492, but the revelation that in Arizona, and in every state in the country, people are registering to vote and voting without ever providing proof of citizenship.
How many people are we talking about? In 2020, there were roughly 11,600 individuals in Arizona who voted in federal elections without ever having provide proof of citizenship. That’s up from under 2,000 just two years prior in the 2018 midterms. These numbers are alarming, but the exponential growth from just one election to the next is even more shocking.
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