Arizona voters could soon decide on sweeping changes to the state’s election rules under a new ballot referral filed by Sen. Shawnna Bolick (R-LD20), marking the latest push by Republican lawmakers to overhaul election procedures ahead of the 2026 cycle. Bolick submitted the measure, SCR 1001, over the weekend. The proposal seeks to place several election-related requirements directly into state law—changes lawmakers say are intended to bolster public confidence following years of political tension and disputes surrounding Arizona’s voting processes.
“Election integrity is paramount to maintain our Republic,” Bolick said, describing the measure as a direct response to years of public calls for tighter verification and clearer rules. “It’s time we give [voters] the chance to secure those protections permanently.” If approved by the Legislature and then by voters in November 2026, the ballot referral would require documented proof of citizenship before a ballot is issued to any voter; end early voting at 7 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day, shifting Arizona’s voting schedule and creating firmer deadlines for processing ballots; and mandate government-issued identification for both in-person voting and early ballots.
Republicans argue these standards are necessary to ensure the accuracy and security of election results. Bolick said the proposal is designed to “put voters – not bureaucrats, not activists, and not foreign interests – back in charge of how our elections are run.” Bolick has introduced similar legislation in the past, including bills to prohibit foreign donations in Arizona elections and proposals to speed up vote counting—efforts she often frames as moving Arizona closer to “Florida-style” same-day reporting.
SCR 1001 will be taken up during the 2026 legislative session, which begins January 12. If it clears both chambers, the measure will bypass the governor and head directly to voters. The proposal is expected to draw both support and criticism as the Legislature debates the balance between election security and voter access—a fault line that has defined Arizona’s election-law discussions for several years.
Supporters say the measure would strengthen trust and accountability. For now, the question heads to the Legislature, where SCR 1001 is set to become a key part of the debate over how Arizona runs its elections.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen announced Wednesday that the state legislature has joined a coalition of 20 states in support of Idaho’s voter ID law, which prohibits the use of student IDs when registering to vote or casting a ballot. The move comes as the law faces an appeal in federal court.
The coalition, led by Arizona and Montana, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of March for Our Lives Idaho v. Phil McGrane. The brief defends Idaho’s authority to establish its own voter identification requirements under the U.S. Constitution.
The challenged Idaho law, enacted in 2023, was designed to tighten election security by limiting acceptable forms of voter identification. Student IDs from high schools and higher education institutions are no longer valid under the new law. Two advocacy groups, including March for Our Lives, sued to block the measure, arguing it disproportionately impacts young voters. Although a lower court dismissed the case, it is now being appealed.
In their legal brief, the 20-state coalition argues there is no evidence the law violates the 26th Amendment, which prohibits age-based discrimination in voting rights. The states contend that Idaho’s law does not intentionally target young voters and that legislatures have broad constitutional authority to prevent election fraud before it occurs.
“Every state has an absolute right to implement voter ID laws through its legislature,” said Senate President Petersen. “Arizona has been at the forefront of this movement to ensure the integrity of our elections through voter ID requirements. Prevention is better than prosecution.”
Petersen emphasized that states should not be required to wait for fraud to occur before taking preventative steps. He praised Idaho’s approach and affirmed Arizona’s commitment to maintaining strict election standards.
Voter ID laws have been a source of national debate, with supporters saying they protect election integrity and opponents claiming they can disenfranchise voters, particularly younger and marginalized communities. Legal challenges continue to test how far states can go in setting identification rules without violating federal protections.
The Ninth Circuit Court’s decision in the Idaho case could have broader implications for other states with similar laws or those considering tightening voter ID requirements. No date has been set for oral arguments in the appeal.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Congressman Abraham Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) pointed out this week the accuracy of his anticipation that Arizona Democrats would file a lawsuit seeking to block President Trump’s Executive Order 14248, entitled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. Hamadeh described the Democrats as “the beneficiaries of Arizona’s broken election system,”
Reacting to the announcement from Arizona Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Hamadeh’s office stated that they “and their ilk across the country will go to any lengths to keep our elections processes broken.” His office also noted that the Congressman alongside his co-sponsor Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R+NY-24), who chairs the Congressional Election Integrity Caucus, have introduced legislation to support and codify the President’s election integrity agenda.
President Trump's Preserving & Protecting the Integrity of American Elections Executive Order takes historic steps to keep noncitizens from voting in elections, eliminate voter fraud, & repeal Biden's corrupt EO 14019!@RepAbeHamadeh & I introduced legislation to enshrine this…
Congresswoman Tenney posted on X, “President Trump’s Preserving & Protecting the Integrity of American Elections Executive Order takes historic steps to keep noncitizens from voting in elections, eliminate voter fraud, & repeal Biden’s corrupt EO 14019! @RepAbeHamadeh & I introduced legislation to enshrine this EO into law to ensure our elections remain free, fair, & honest.”
“The American people deserve better. They deserve to know that their legally cast ballot is counted and accounted for. I am disappointed, but obviously not surprised that Mayes and Fontes seek to thwart the implementation of commonsense safeguards of democracy,” concluded Congressman Hamadeh. “As a trusted advisor once said to me, ‘election integrity never disenfranchised a single soul, but a single act of election fraud disenfranchises us all.’”
The proposed bill, H.R. 2499, would codify Trump’s EO 14248 by ordering states to require proof of citizenship in the form of government-issued ID on voter registration forms, ordering the Departments of State and Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to provide federal database access to states for determining voter eligibility, and requiring a single Election Day deadline for vote tabulation. Each measure will carry the threat of withdrawn federal funding in the event of non-compliance. In a press release, Rep. Hamadeh stated, “In Arizona, we have seen what the mismanagement of voter rolls, failed election infrastructure, and corrupt courts can do to destroy voter confidence and faith in our system overall. We are taking swift action to rebuild citizens’ trust in our elections through comprehensive and meaningful election integrity legislation.”
Another election has come and gone, and once again Arizona showed the nation that it doesn’t know how to count votes. Like a bad movie we are forced to watch every two years, rampant delays in processing early ballots left voters waiting over a week to find out who won key races in the state.
Virtually everyone around the country watching our slow-motion election train wreck, from major media outlets to national pundits, agreed that fixing Arizona’s tabulation process is long overdue.
Everyone, that is, except Governor Katie Hobbs and her partisan Democrat allies in the legislature.
This shouldn’t be a total shock to those who have followed previous attempts to reform our election system. Over the last couple of years, Democrats have opposed popular election reforms like requiring basic proof of citizenship to vote, all while millions were pouring in illegally through the southern border. They argued against commonsense voter ID laws, claiming our elections are safe and secure without them (and California democrats even banned voter ID outright).
And now, after Arizona was again one of the last states to finish ballot processing, the Democrats remain opposed to ensuring we have election night results…
The famous poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson from the 1800s once quipped, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying.” This is especially true when observing how our elected officials operate our government.
Per several posts on X, voters recently received a text blast referencing Vice President Kamala Harris as the “presumptive Democrat nominee” and chiding her “radical” left election policy positions, including “same-day voter registration, no voter ID, and more federal control of our elections.” The text blast made a policy commitment on behalf of the current Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer to protect us from these extreme policies.
How is he going to defend against Kamala's radical policies if he's voting for her!? pic.twitter.com/nplbCEi7d1
— Rep. Alexander Kolodin (@realAlexKolodin) July 29, 2024
But when presented with the opportunity to codify such protections into law, the Maricopa County Recorder’s track record tells a different story.
In the 2022 legislative session, State Representative Jake Hoffman introduced bill HB2237, which would have made same-day voter registration illegal in Arizona.
It was a very simple bill that just stated:
Same-day voter registration is a scheme from the left to overwhelm County Recorders with thousands of registrations on Election Day or during a voting period. This makes it nearly impossible to confirm if someone is actually a legal citizen resident of Arizona before providing them with a ballot.
Currently, throughout the year, but especially at the last minute right before voter registration election deadlines, many groups in Arizona, especially from the left, have generous paid programs to register voters. They often don’t submit completed forms, creating complications for election workers. Jen Fifield from Vote Beat recently reported on the issues caused by this.
NEW: Hundreds of Arizonans who tried to register to vote just before Tuesday’s primary election were blocked from the rolls because of a problem with their paper forms, @VotebeatUS analysis found.https://t.co/Rye0LtDxmV
As the article mentions, these same extreme left groups advocate for same-day voter registration, and many pushed their members and lobbyists to sign in against HB2237 in 2022. Even Katie Hobbs’ Secretary of State Office signed in against the bill, while conservative groups like the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and Heritage Action signed in favor of banning same-day voter registration.
You would think that at such a moment as this bold, simple bill, the Maricopa County Recorder could take a strong stand and defend his employees and the voters from such an insane policy from the left. Unfortunately, neither the Recorder’s Office, his office’s lobbyist, nor the associations for the recorders and counties took a position on the bill. The Maricopa County Recorder didn’t show up to testify for or against the bill either.
Complete silence.
When it comes to voter ID, it gets much worse.
The Arizona Legislature added Proposition 309 to the 2022 ballot, which would have added a voter ID requirement on early ballots. It was a simple proposal that the Recorder’s Office was previously on record as supporting in principle, per public records.
When the bill was brought before the Legislature, the Arizona Association of Counties opposed it. There is no record of the Recorder or his lobbyist associations taking a position on the bill or offering amendments.
When the proposition made it to the ballot, the Maricopa County Recorder not only publicly opposed voter ID for early voting but also used government resources to do so.
The Arizona County Recorders (people who oversee early voting) OPPOSE Proposition 309.
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) October 11, 2022
I found this strange since all my previous interactions with Recorder Richer, from working on his 2019 “election integrity” report to conversations with his office on policy to a coffee meeting I had with him one-on-one in 2021, all indicated that his position was that signature verification alone wasn’t sufficient to secure elections and that some sort of voter ID mechanism was needed to secure early ballots.
It's interesting that you flipped your position on the effectiveness of signature verification, @stephen_richer, because last we met you affirmed that our findings from our election audit report still remained & signature review process is not sufficient to secure our vote pic.twitter.com/rHtEpIzleW
July 23, 2021, @stephen_richer told me at a coffee meeting his department has no way to legitimately verify signatures and the voter rolls were a complete mess
He said he needed at least two more identifiers to confidently confirm voter identity and stop ballot harvesting https://t.co/FXGjnqAvb2
— Merissa Hamilton 🗳 ⛽ 🗽🔥 (@merissahamilton) May 9, 2023
The Arizonans for Voter ID organization sent a letter to the Arizona Attorney General admonishing Recorder Richer for violating the law by using his government office resources to advocate against the ballot referral.
.@stephen_richer did this to voice his feelings on #Prop309 which ensures everyone shows ID, and wrongly claimed unanimous support for his letter, which doesn't exist. We hope @GeneralBrnovich protects our elections from the inappropriate influence of the Recorder's Office. pic.twitter.com/ifbsVfRZkT
The voter ID proposition ended up failing by 18,488 votes and only by 2.5% in Maricopa County.
Fast forward two years. The Maricopa County Recorder’s letter on Prop 309 is scrubbed from the internet now that he’s running for re-election, and text blasts are going out stating he will defend voter ID.
To be clear, the current Maricopa County Recorder not only has multiple associations at his disposal to advocate for or against policy, but he also has his own lobbyist for his office. With all these lobbying resources, his opponent Rep. Justin Heap was recently featured on the Mike Broomhead show as stating that although he’s served on the Legislature’s House Elections Committee for the last two years, he’s never seen the Maricopa County Recorder at the Legislature. Heap says Recorder Richer has been a “hindrance” in passing needed laws, such as those to fight radical left policies.
When it comes to federal laws, as I mentioned in my piece on AZ Free News last week, the current Recorder has also been silent on his award-winning X platform in advocating for the Speaker Johnson-supported SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship for voters in federal elections.
One thing is for certain, while the current Maricopa County Recorder has taken a back seat when it comes to defending voters from radical left policies, Maricopa County voters are certainly desperate for our county recorders to use their resources to give us a stronger voice in standing up for policies that would strengthen the security and trust in our elections.
Merissa Hamilton is the founder and chairwoman of the nonpartisan nonprofit organizations Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Strong Communities Action, also known as EZAZ.org, which are focused on making civic education and action as easy as pie. She’s an elected Member at Large of Congressional District 1 for the Arizona Republican Party and previously ran for Mayor in 2020. Merissa is also the Director of Integration and Policy at The R.O.A.R. PAC, which is on a mission to restore our American Republic.
