by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jun 7, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Last Friday, the AZ Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit in federal court against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) mandate that he maintain accurate and updated voter registration records. Why? The data shows that there are 500,000 unaccounted for registered voters who are not qualified either due to death or moving out of the state, and in total, up to more than a million voters on the rolls who should not be registered.
Clean and accurate voter rolls are the bedrock of elections run with integrity. Ensuring only those eligible to vote may register and are on the rolls means that only eligible voters may vote in an election. It’s a basic principle: garbage in, garbage out. If we begin with bad data – ineligible individuals on the rolls – the system is susceptible to allowing ineligible ballots to be cast.
That’s why in 2022 we championed two landmark pieces of legislation to accomplish just that, and why, unsurprisingly, Marc Elias and the left’s lawfare machine immediately sued to stop these commonsense safeguards from going into effect. HB2492 ensures only eligible citizens who have provided proof of citizenship can register to vote and HB2243 requires regular and routine voter roll maintenance using several databases of information, with regular reports to the legislature of the results.
Both these laws are consistent with the NVRA’s mandate that states maintain accurate voter registration lists. But right now, Adrian Fontes is failing in his obligations under both, and that’s why we have filed a lawsuit in federal court to force him to do his job.
Four Counties Have More Registered Voters Than People
How do we know? According to the most recent census and voter registration data, more than 90% of the voting age population in Arizona is purportedly registered to vote. The national average is 69.1%. Why would Arizonans register to vote at an absurdly higher rate than the rest of the country? The only answer is that the state and counties are failing to adequately remove individuals who are no longer eligible, leading to bloated rolls…
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by Daniel Stefanski | Mar 24, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Maricopa County’s top prosecutor is cracking down on a foreign group committing home burglaries across the Valley.
Earlier this week, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell announced “new charges against a group of thieves targeting homes in Phoenix and Scottsdale.” Mitchell’s office shared that “the defendants are thought to be part of the South American Theft Group, a ring of thieves who hire Chilean nationals to come to the United States and – after obtaining false identification – operate as ‘crime tourists’ who plan and execute burglaries here and nationwide.”
Three defendants were arrested in Scottsdale this month, and another three were arrested in Phoenix last month.
In a statement, Mitchell said, “The Scottsdale and Phoenix Police Departments have done some amazing work to find these criminals and arrest them. The job of my office is to hold them accountable. This is not a phenomenon limited to Maricopa County – these organized groups are stealing from families across the nation. I will not allow them to become entrenched here and pose a further threat to our neighbors.”
According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO), “The South American Theft Groups are made up of people who travel from South America specifically to target homes and families in the U.S. The federal government’s tourist visa program allows them to fly into the United States without a background check. Once they’ve entered our county, they immediately obtain fake I.D. They travel to cities across the nation – including in Maricopa County – and steal millions in untraceable items.”
The Scottsdale Police Department announced the apprehensions on March 11.
The MCAO reports that “there have been over 100 similar types of burglaries valley wide since November 2023” – of which, 35 have victimized the city of Scottsdale. The Office also revealed that “one defendant admitted to being in the U.S. on a tourist visa and had already been a part of burglaries in California, Nevada, and Arizona.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Mar 7, 2024 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Senate candidate Kari Lake sustained several blows in court this week: a withdrawal of her appeal for access to Maricopa County’s 2022 election ballot envelopes, and the denial of her petition to dismiss Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit.
The former gubernatorial candidate filed the withdrawal on Monday in her case seeking access to Maricopa County’s ballot envelopes from the contested 2022 election (CV2023-051480). A similar, separate lawsuit from the Glendale-based nonprofit We the People AZ Alliance (WTPAA) remains active.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer expressed relief to AZ Free News that the county attorney’s office had one less election dispute case to manage, though he noted that other cases involving Lake remain. The attorney for both Lake and WTPAA’s cases, Bryan Blehm, didn’t respond to our request for comment by press time.
“She lost. We won. The same could be said of every case Kari has brought against my office or the Board of Supervisors (and there have been many). We follow the law. Period,” said Richer. “For anyone curious about allegations of election or public records misconduct, and who’s following the law and who’s not, these cases offer a very clear answer.”
Three other cases have been filed by Lake involving Richer, none of which have yielded any wins: CV2022-014827, which sought remedy for those disenfranchised by the mass ballot equipment malfunctions on Election Day, was voluntarily dismissed in November 2022; CV2022-015519, which sought access to Election Day voting records, was dismissed without prejudice; and CV2022-095403, which challenged the validity of the 2022 election declaring Lake’s opponent, Gov. Katie Hobbs, the winner. In the latter, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected most of Lake’s claims last March, with the trial court rejecting the remaining claim in May. Lake promptly filed an appeal.
Monday’s action came after several months of waiting on the candidate’s next move, after she promised an appeal. Last December, the Maricopa County Superior Court denied Lake’s petition to obtain the 2022 Maricopa County ballot envelopes. Judge John Hannah said that the release of the ballot affidavit envelopes would result in harm to individual voters, such as voter fraud, harassment, and identity theft, due to the inclusion of voter signatures alongside voters’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers.
“Disclosure of the ballot affidavit envelopes therefore would create a risk of widespread fraud where none exists at present,” said Hannah.
Another legal battle persists between Richer and Lake. On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed Richer’s defamation lawsuit against Lake to proceed to trial.
Richer sued Lake last June, alleging that the Senate candidate had “falsely and with actual malice” accused him of intentionally printing the wrong size of ballots and inserting 300,000 illegal or invalid early-vote ballots during the 2022 general election.
In her unsuccessful motion to dismiss, Lake argued that her claims constituted legitimate concerns about the 2022 election.
In response to the development in his defamation case, Richer posted on X that Lake had made specific, easily falsifiable claims that she knew were false.
“Words matter,” said Richer. “[T]hose false claims — broadcast to millions of people, often while seeking donations — had, no surprise, a very material impact on me and mine.”
Richer later declared that his team of over 15 attorneys had built a strong case with favorable precedence.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Merissa Hamilton | Feb 26, 2024 | Opinion
By Merissa Hamilton |
Recorder Stephen Richer is a far cry from Candidate Richer we met just 4 years ago.
When Stephen Richer ran for Recorder in 2020, he promised us “fair and competent elections,” “no rogue policymaking,” and “NO FIGHTS WITH VOTERS.” His commitment was that if we the people elected him to arguably one of the most critical offices in Arizona related to overseeing the 2024 Presidential Election, he would “further transparency and accountability” in the Recorder’s Office.
His legal fights to refuse to comply with public records requests under the guise of “it’s for your safety” are well known. However, when I received a notice in the mail that he was going to inactivate my voter registration, I thought surely, we could expect transparency for our own voter records! After all, he promised to follow the law, and ARS 16-168F specifically affords voters the right to public inspection of their own voter registration records. It even requires the Recorder to conduct this service at the “office of the county recorder.”
Per testimony on January 31, 2024 by the lobbyist representing the Counties, the voter registration record is quite comprehensive. It includes essentially a transcript of every action the Recorder’s Office took on your record and every action you took as a voter. It includes your signature records, voting history, address history, registration history, and even your affidavit envelopes if you vote early.
Knowing this, I thought this inactive voter misunderstanding could simply be cleared up by asking for a public inspection of my voter registration record at his office. My immediate concern was that there was some tampering with my record since USPS had not disrupted my mail, and to my recollection, I’ve received all the same mail as the other voters in my household.
On February 20th, I went to Recorder Richer’s office in the afternoon to ask for an in-person inspection of my full voter record, only to be told I had to schedule an appointment for a public inspection.
Ok. No worries. I am a reasonable person.
The next day, after I emailed for an appointment, I was told they closed down the public from inspecting their voter record until April 3rd – well after the Presidential Preference Election concludes. This means that the previous day I made the request was the last opportunity they offered for electors to view their records and ensure everything was in order.
My friend Sean Campbell said it best in reminding us what Mr. Richer promised, “In June of 2020, Stephen Richer, while running for Maricopa County Recorder, gave a brief speech saying ‘we haven’t had transparency, we haven’t had competency, we haven’t even had lawfulness, we haven’t had fairness in the Recorder’s office and in our election system.'”
Can the 2020 Stephen Richer please remind this 2024 Recorder Richer guy what transparency, competency, lawfulness, and fairness mean?
Unless we can inspect our full record, we don’t know what signatures are actually on record or what the signature on our affidavit envelope that was counted looks like. With most voters voting on the early vote system, transparency in our elections with in-person public inspections of our records is the only security measure under the voter’s control that we have on our ballots.
What’s worse is that the voter roll cleanup Stephen Richer brags about is not even with actual returns of physical mail from USPS. He is removing voters without verifying they even received a physical piece of mail that was returned. Instead, USPS just sends him a digital file with voters to inactivate. He doesn’t even add the file to our voter record according to the Director of Constituent Services for his office. How many other highly active voters like me were erroneously inactivated through this lazy, digitized process?
There’s no excuse for Recorder Richer not to follow the law and allow voters in-person inspections of our full voter records in his office. There’s already a kiosk inside the voter service area. He also has conference rooms that can accommodate voters.
But these are not the only recent incidents where Recorder Richer has deliberately mismanaged his duties, disqualifying him from continuing in this role.
Recorder Richer ditched Phil the Ballot and used taxpayer dollars to promote himself with highly edited photos and videos.
In the 2023 bond elections, Recorder Richer shut down voting locations hours early after going on news broadcasts that day, telling voters all locations would be open until 7 pm. This likely disenfranchised thousands of voters.
Maricopa County voters deserve better. We deserve dignity back in our elections instead of constantly being the national laughingstock. And at the very minimum, we deserve transparency without suppressing voters from seeing our full voter records. These are low bars that Recorder Richer refuses to fulfill. Now, he either needs to step up and fulfill them or move on to a new role.
Merissa Hamilton is the founder and Chairwoman of Strong Communities Action, also known as EZAZ.org, a non-profit organization focused on making civic action and education easy as pie. She’s an elected Member at Large of Congressional District 1 for the Arizona Republican Party. She’s the Executive Director of Save Arizona. She previously ran for Mayor in 2020.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 18, 2024 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
“Do as we say, and not as we do.” That is typically how it goes with government. In this case, the “do as we say” means you giving up your gas stoves and cars. The “not as we do,” well, the Vice President of the United States still openly enjoys her very own gas stove, and don’t expect the President to give up Air Force One or his large fleet of gas limousines and cars anytime soon. Also, you probably shouldn’t sit in anticipation for the activists to give up the private jets they fly into climate conferences to scheme about how to limit your access to gas devices, or their yachts. Remember, it’s do as we say, not as we do.
Normally, the left will try to hide and subvert their goals. That’s what they did with their efforts to ban gas stoves: have the media tell everyone it was a conspiracy theory, and that no one wanted to take them, meanwhile having several agencies draft complicated rules to basically regulate them out of existence. Now, however, they have become more emboldened to just come right out and say it: we are coming for your gas cars…
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