by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Dec 11, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Another election has come and gone, and unsurprisingly, Arizona is yet again the butt of national jokes for taking weeks to process ballots and tabulate votes. While some in the corporate media still attempt to defend our vote counting circus, most everyone is in agreement that big changes are needed. It doesn’t take being an election expert to recognize that states with far greater populations, who also experience large rates of early voting, somehow get their votes counted on election night or near to it.
It’s a fix that is long overdue, yet for over five years the reform has continued to run into a political meatgrinder at the state Capitol. Since 2019, our organization, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, has supported, championed, and authored bills to ensure we get results on election night. And while Democrats in the legislature have been an obstacle to reform (they have universally opposed any reforms geared toward getting faster results), they have not been the only impediment to fixing the problem.
The real culprit is opposition from county “election officials,” or more precisely, their taxpayer-funded lobbyists. For years, our so-called election experts have worked overtime to stop any reasonable reforms to Arizona’s mail-in voting system. Their tactics are incredibly disingenuous. When people express their frustration about the glacier pace of vote counting, they clap back (usually with dripping condescension) that their hands are tied by existing law. But when lawmakers introduce bills to change those laws, those same election officials send their army of lobbyists down to the Capitol to fight reform at every turn…
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by Matthew Holloway | Nov 2, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The office of Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly has become the center of the latest election controversy in Arizona. On October 19th, the county’s online portal to request vote-by-mail ballots was shut down when voting officials claimed the site was overwhelmed with the quantity of requests. The shutdown occurred a week prior to the Oct. 25th deadline.
According to the Tucson Sentinel, as an alternative, the county office posted a notice at the top of the disabled form page instructing voters to call-in to the office in order to request a mail-in ballot.
Arizona Senator Justine Wadsack announced Wednesday that she is launching an investigation into the allegations against Cázares-Kelly’s office “following potential violations which may have suppressed thousands of Southern Arizona voters.”
“I was truly shocked to learn our County Recorder’s Office had done this,” Senator Wadsack said in a statement. “These actions are absolutely unacceptable, undermine the integrity of our elections, and raise serious questions regarding voter suppression. This has affected my current constituents and my community, and I want to make sure their votes are protected as well as votes for all candidates involved. I’m here to make sure there’s accountability for the laws that appear to have been broken. My message to voters is to get out today and vote in person to ensure your vote is not suppressed.”
In a letter of inquiry sent to the County Recorder, Wadsack wrote, “You certainly know that, under Arizona law, ‘an elector may make a verbal or signed request to the county recorder’ for an early ballot. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(A) (emphasis added). Further, your office must mail voters the early ballot ‘within forty-eight hours after receipt of the request.’ Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(D). It appears clear that your office violated both requirements.”
Arizona Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr issued a similar inquiry on Oct. 24th to Cázares-Kelly following allegations that the Recorder’s office, on receipt of undeliverable ballots or those returned due to an outdated address, sent notice that the voters mailed ballot was “received,” creating confusion.
Per the Sentinel, Cázares-Kelly’s office sent alerts to approximately 4,000 voters in a mass email to notify them that their requests for a mail-in-ballot were canceled and instructed them to contact the office by phone to request a ballot, citing Marion Chubon, chief deputy to the Pima County Recorder, who ordered the shutdown. Chubon told reporters that the office didn’t inform the press as they “didn’t think it was a story.”
Chubon, responding to the outlet, explained that although the state law requiring ballots be sent within 48 hours of a request (as referred to by Sen. Wadsack), “was a consideration, obviously, and we weren’t going to fulfill those requests in that time. So we chose the more effective option – bottom line, getting those people their ballots that they needed.” However, the state law doesn’t allow for the County Recorder to make such a determination and cast aside requests that have already been submitted.
Subsequently, over 3,000 phone calls were fielded by the office on Oct. 21st and some 1,858 new requests were processed. Between that Monday and Friday another 2,829 requests were handled to the tune of approximately one every four minutes. Chubon told the outlet that she was confident that most of the voters whose requests were thrown out had received one. However she noted that, “We can’t guarantee that every single person called us to get a ballot, but we’re pretty confident that the majority of those were second requests… and those who didn’t fit into that category may have had a hold on their record and wouldn’t have gotten a ballot.”
“We just didn’t think it was a story,” Chubon added. “We were literally just trying to meet our statutory obligations and serve the voters. Like I said, over the weekend, we were processing unprecedented amounts of ballots. We have staff working 12-hour days, seven days a week, including the recorder and myself. We’re all working every day. It was just, ‘Let’s get these people their ballots.’ That was our focus. We would never, intentionally, not try to alert the media.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Oct 12, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Early voting has officially commenced across the crucial swing state of Arizona.
Arizona political parties are encouraging their voters to cast their ballots as early as possible as the pivotal election in November nears.
The Arizona Democratic Party posted, “ARIZONA: Early voting begins today & your mail-in ballot should arrive soon. We have so much at stake this election – from the presidency to flipping our Republican-controlled state legislature. Make a plan to vote…”
The Republican Party of Arizona stated, “Early Voting starts TODAY! Don’t wait – cast your vote early for President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot. Check the status of your ballot and find a vote center near you at Arizona.Vote! EVERY. VOTE. COUNTS.”
The AZGOP also shared a video clip from a recent speech from Chair Gina Swoboda, where she encouraged listeners to vote by mail to avoid any potential issues at the polling locations.
Last week, the Arizona Libertarian Party alerted its followers on social media that early voting would soon begin.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes also promoted the start of early voting in his state, encouraging interested individuals to visit Arizona.Vote “for all your Arizona election needs.”
In the Republican stronghold of Yavapai County, the Recorder there highlighted the beginning of early voting and shared a website for local voters to find locations and time to cast their ballots over the next month.
Additionally, the Pima County Recorder’s Office posted information about early voting in this southern Arizona jurisdiction, including for the 19 early voting sites under its purview.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | May 26, 2023 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
Elections aren’t being stolen. But they are carried out under rules devised by one side for their benefit.
The Left loves our election system and why wouldn’t they? It has been a boon for them. They can win elections even when all seems lost. They have learned to exploit, through both legal and extra-legal means, the opportunities presented by bulk-mail voting, ballot harvesting, and lack of voter ID requirements. So, they falsely insist our procedures are virtually fraud-proof, and that attempts to improve election security are racially motivated “voter suppression.”
In fact, voter fraud is not all that rare and is easy to commit. It is hard to detect because victims are unaware that their vote has been canceled and so are unlikely to complain.
In New York, 63 undercover agents went to the polls, giving the names of individuals who had died, moved, or were incarcerated. All but two were given ballots, including young people impersonating voters three times their age.
A television reporter in Florida, on his own, turned up 94 non-citizens who had voted. Elections have been overturned because of voter fraud in Miami, Florida, East Chicago, Indiana, in Essex County, New Jersey, and Greene County, Alabama among other locales.
And who can forget Al Franken’s 312 vote victory in Minnesota’s Senate race, when later over one thousand felons (most probably Democrat voters) were found to have voted.
In 2020, the Pacific Interest Legal Foundation published a meticulous analysis of voter databases in which 144,000 cases of potential voter fraud were documented. These included dead voters, voters who had moved, and voters who supposedly lived in vacant lots, restaurants, and gas stations.
The report was sent to the 42 states in which fraud was uncovered. Not a single official or prosecutor asked for the relevant information for their state. Not one. The stunning New York undercover operation also garnered little attention, either from media or law-enforcement agencies. Neither did the Florida reporter’s discoveries. You see the pattern.
Fraud must be looked for to be detected and most election officials aren’t that enthusiastic about investigating for fraud. Why give yourself a black eye?
Honest researchers admit no one knows how much fraud is out there. Defenders of the status-quo like to point out the lack of proven fraud cases associated with mail-in voting, but unless someone confesses, the crime is essentially non-detectable.
Look at how bulk-mail compares with in-person voting, long the gold standard of election security. At the voting site, voters are protected from undue influence. Only after the list of eligible voters is checked and their ID is presented are they given a ballot. They are monitored while they vote. The secrecy of the ballot is maintained at all times. Finally, a formal chain of custody assures that ballots are handled securely until counted.
By contrast, bulk-mail voting, in Arizona and other states, begins with unrequested ballots being mailed to millions of names on poorly maintained voter lists, some of whom don’t give a hoot about voting. Most ballots are received by their intended recipients, voted, and returned. But others get lost in the mail or are delivered to people who have moved or died. Yet others go to voters, some mentally incapacitated, who are “helped” by third parties to cast their vote. Some ballots are even sold.
Many of the votes are returned by “ballot harvesting,” where party activists collect the ballots and then return them or place them in a dropbox. There are no chain of custody violations, because there is no chain of custody.
Finally, signature matching is used as a substitute for actual ID verification. But signature matching is an imprecise “art”—with no objective standards—which has been demonstrated many times to be unreliable.
Bulk-mail voting is popular and growing, both with those who innocently appreciate its convenience and with those who cherish the inexplicable election wins that can be achieved by it.
But the value of a vote in a democratic society depends on the integrity with which it is cast and counted. A majority of Americans don’t believe their elections are secure, nor will they until we reject voting processes that are so porous to fraud and deceit.
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 Corinne Murdock | Dec 13, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said that early mail-in ballots are less problematic than in-person voting.
Richer made the remark during last month’s rowdy Board of Supervisors’ meeting to certify the election results. Richer said that this year’s early voting process had few issues, which he assured were remedied quickly.
“The early voting process is safe. It is secure, it is trackable, and it is subject to fewer of the caprices of in-person voting,” stated Richer.
The county recorder disclosed that preference at the end of his summary report on the county’s election processes and relevant data. He also took a swipe at critics.
“We can spend the next two years as we’ve spent the last two: fighting over conspiracy theories as promoted on social media by people who know nothing about elections,” stated Richer.
That line prompted loud, angry outcries from the audience. Gates pleaded calm, remarking that “the world is watching” as the audience shouted at Richer.
Richer continued, insisting that people should stop focusing on issues like splunk logs and ballot mules, and instead focus on legislative efforts like speeding up early vote processing.
Richer assured those present and the tens of thousands viewing the live stream of the meeting that the election was run efficiently despite Election Day hiccups with tabulators stemming from printer settings. Richer noted that political observers representing all parties were present throughout the election process.
Richer reported that Election Day voter registration totaled around 2.4 million. Approximately 77 percent of those were on the Active Early Voting List (AEVL); the county reportedly mailed out just under 1.9 million ballots.
There were 6,836 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) votes. Over 1.3 million million early ballots were returned early: 806,000 came through USPS. Of the 461,000 early ballots dropped off at drop box early voting locations, 290,000 were dropped off on Election Day. Richer remarked that the number of early ballots dropped off on Election Day were a significant increase, despite his “best efforts” to dissuade voters from doing that.
Richer walked through the early ballot review process. He dispelled rumors that the county uses artificial intelligence for signature verification.
Richer reported that on the day before Election Day, the county had processed all early ballots received by Saturday. By Wednesday morning they processed all early ballots they received by Sunday, Monday, or by mail on Tuesday.
Richer emphasized that the county didn’t compromise any aspect of their early ballot processing because of the “stink” raised by the community concerning signature verification over the last few years.
He reported that the Sunday after Election Day, the early vote team had to review provisional ballots and cure ballots. Approximately 16,000 ballots had “bad” signatures, and all were cured except about 1,800.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
