Since the 2020 election, the left has been accusing conservatives of spreading the “Big Lie”—a label attached to anyone who believes that voter fraud does occur and that there are legitimate election integrity reforms that require legislative attention. Every reform that lawmakers have introduced has been labelled “Jim Crow 2.0,” and the left has rallied hundreds of organizations to prevent them from becoming law.
Yet while decrying legitimate election reforms from conservatives, liberals have been busy pushing their own election bills, such as HR1, which would have federalized our entire election process and completely changed the way we vote. It was a radical bill that fortunately stalled in the U.S. Senate due to a lack of votes.
But their defeat in Washington hasn’t stopped the left in their quest to undermine the security of our elections and chill our speech rights. A coalition of liberal organizations have decided to bring HR1 to Arizona with a new ballot measure called “Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections.” Suffice to say, there is nothing free or fair about it.
For example, their proposed initiative would raise taxes on small businesses to increase public funding for politicians running for office. While it isn’t surprising that Democrats want taxpayer dollars to subsidize their campaigns going into an election with gas prices higher than ever and families struggling to deal with record inflation, Arizonans don’t want their hard-earned dollars paying for yard signs, political mailers, and campaign advertisements.
Additionally, successful efforts were made in numerous states last year, Arizona included, to prohibit the private funding of the administration of elections. Their measure guts that safeguard, allowing billionaires and special interests to directly finance or sponsor election operations.
Next, while poll after poll shows that an overwhelming majority of voters support common-sense reforms like voter ID, their initiative completely guts existing voter ID requirements for in-person voters and forbids the state from requiring voter ID for mail-in ballots, which the popular Arizonans for Voter ID Act would do.
Recently, the Governor signed HB2492 which strengthens proof of citizenship requirements for registering to vote, ensuring only eligible citizens are registered and voting in our elections. Their proposed initiative would undo this reform, allowing individuals who do not provide proof of citizenship to vote in all federal elections and making it easier for illegals to vote.
And as voters are becoming alarmed at potentially massive ballot harvesting operations in several states in 2020 and actual grand jury ballot trafficking indictments in Arizona, their 25-page election overhaul would expose voters to ballot trafficking by operatives and campaigns who can go door to door collecting ballots directly from voters, even when the voter has not asked for help casting their ballot.
Contrary to the liberals HR1 wish list of election reforms, Arizonans want an election system where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. But measures like this make it easy to cheat and hard to catch. Most of the nearly 60 provisions of the initiative ranging from tax hikes to gutting wildly popular reforms like voter ID are not what Arizona voters want—Republicans and Democrats alike.
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