by admin | Jan 25, 2022 | Elections, News and Updates
Most people paying attention to elections in Arizona have likely heard of Federal Only voters, but few probably know the complicated history of how we began bifurcating our voter registration system and allowing individuals to vote in federal elections, even if they haven’t proven they are a US citizen.
History
In 2004, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 200 which, in part, created the requirement that “the county recorder shall reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.” (A.R.S § 16-166(F)). At that time, Arizona was under what was known as preclearance, where the Department of Justice essentially held veto power over state election laws. The Documented Proof of Citizenship (DPOC) provision of Prop 200, however, did receive preclearance by the DOJ and went into effect in 2005. Arizona was immediately sued.
The problem was that in 1993 Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) which, among other mandates, created a federal voter registration form that each state must “accept and use.”
The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) was given the authority to design this federal voter registration form, on which they were required to provide state specific instructions to account for the different requirements of each of the 50 states. Arizona’s DPOC requirement, however, was left out and only a box remained for applicants to attest to their citizenship status – an honor system.
The suit brought against the state argued that this NVRA requirement to “accept and use” the federal form preempts Arizona from requiring any information from applicants beyond what is requested on the federal form. After years in and out of the courts, the case made its way to the US Supreme Court.
In 2013 the 7-2 decision of Inter Tribal Council held that the NVRA does preempt Arizona’s DPOC requirement, and that Arizona may not request additional information beyond that which is required on the federal form and must, assuming the application is complete and the applicant is qualified, register an applicant to vote in federal elections.
Following this decision, Secretary of State Ken Bennet bifurcated our voter registration system to prevent individuals using federal forms from being registered to vote in all Arizona elections. And, importantly, Arizona continued to reject applications for registration made on the state voter registration form that did not include DPOC.
But Arizona was sued yet again in 2017 by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), this time alleging that by accepting federal forms for registration without DPOC (as the Supreme Court required), but rejecting state forms (as the same Court affirmed we could), Arizona was violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by treating applicants differently. Instead of going to trial, Secretary of State Michelle Reagan and Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes agreed to settle the case with LULAC and enter into what is called a Consent Decree (a settlement that comes with the power of a court order).
In the settlement, Arizona maintained that it was not violating the Equal Protection Clause and that the practice of rejecting state forms for registration was not unconstitutional or preempted by federal law. However, the state agreed that it could accept these forms and register the applicants as federal only voters and stay within the requirements of A.R.S § 16-166(F). In other words, they agreed in court that they could accept forms while somehow complying with Prop 200’s mandate to reject them.
As a result, the practice in 2005 of rejecting all forms that did not include DPOC is now the opposite. Since 2019, Arizona has been registering applicants who use the state voter registration form or the federal form without DPOC as federal only voters, despite Arizona law requiring them to be rejected.
Impact
In 2018, over 1,700 individuals voted in elections for federal office who had not provided DPOC. In 2020, the first election with the 2017 Consent Decree in effect, that number grew to more than 11,600. As of now, more than 36,000 individuals are registered to vote in elections for federal office, yet they have never provided DPOC. To contextualize these numbers, the 2020 statewide margin of victory for the Presidential election in Arizona was 10,457 votes.
Solution
As can be seen, this is a complex issue – a ballot proposition, federal law, the US Constitution, lawsuits, a Supreme Court ruling, a Consent Decree, a federal voter registration form, and a state voter registration form. All intertwine and have, over the past two decades, whittled away at Prop 200 and led to the complete proliferation of a Federal Only voter list, allowing individuals who have not proven they are citizens to vote in our elections.
However, there is a solution that walks the fine legal line and ensures Arizona asserts its Constitutional authority to determine the qualifications of voters and safeguards our registration process. That solution is HB2492, sponsored by Rep. Jake Hoffman.
Next week, we will break down the provisions of the bill and outline how it will help restore the integrity of our voter rolls.
Help Stop Illegals from Voting!
U.S Citizenship is a qualification for voting in both the Arizona constitution and Arizona law. Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 200 in 2004 to ensure only US Citizens could register to vote by requiring that “the county recorder shall reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.”
Unfortunately, through the well-funded lawfare of the left, this requirement has been whittled away and the Federal Only Voter list has exploded. HB2492 will safeguard our voter rolls by ensuring only qualified, U.S Citizens are registered to vote, are able vote in Presidential elections, and eligible to vote by mail.
Will you sign our petition to PROTECT our voter registration process and SUPPORT HB2492?
by admin | Dec 28, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
For a long time, school board elections have been one of the easiest to ignore. Maybe it’s because the names on the ballot don’t stand out as much as the candidates for President, Governor, or U.S. Senate. Maybe it’s because people are too busy to research the candidates. Or maybe it’s because voters who don’t have kids—or whose kids are not in public school—don’t see how school board elections can affect them.
But if 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that even the smallest election has consequences. And nowhere has that been more obvious than with the leftist agendas that have taken over Arizona’s school districts this past year.
By now, you’ve probably already heard about attempts from various school districts throughout the state to adopt Marxist Critical Race Theory programs in their schools. But this effort to indoctrinate our children by teaching them that their moral character is determined by their race is only one of the many issues.
In Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD), students are allowed and even encouraged to replace their “deadname”—the birth name that individuals reject upon transitioning genders—with their preferred name on their school ID. Behind this effort to sexualize children is a group named the Gender & Sexualities Alliance. And parents are right to be alarmed. But when they raised their concerns about such clubs being on campuses as young as middle school, SUSD Superintendent Dr. Scott Menzel labeled their criticism as “targeted attacks” and bullying.
And yes, this is the same school district where the now-former Governing Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg was connected to a secret dossier on parents and other political opposition.
But Scottsdale isn’t the only school district that appears to be ok with sexualizing children. In Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), two English teachers assigned a book containing porn and sexually explicit material as part of an AP 11th grade summer reading list. And the book was also available for any student to read in the school’s library.
Then, there’s Chandler Unified School District (CUSD) where some teachers have been pushing for a program called “Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors.” This curriculum is just a rebranded version of social-emotional learning, which is just a guise for other controversial curriculums like Critical Race Theory and Comprehensive Sex Education.
It’s amazing—but not surprising—to see the efforts they’ll go through to hide this stuff.
But this isn’t the only controversy CUSD has faced this year. The school district also appeared to coordinate with police to spy on and arrest unmasked parents.
Sadly, we’re still not done. Back in July, Higley Unified School District’s former superintendent Dr. Denise Birdwell was indicted on 18 felony counts related to procurement fraud, misuse of public monies, fraudulent schemes and practices, and more.
And finally let’s not forget about all the hypocrisy surrounding COVID. In September, Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) members were seen maskless at a conference while suing for K-12 mask mandates. And they followed that up with another conference earlier this month where multiple attendees did not wear masks despite the conference having a mask mandate.
This is just a small sampling of what’s been going on in our school district’s this past year. Are you tired of it yet?
Thankfully, there is hope. More and more parents have been speaking up, despite being labeled as “domestic terrorists.” And some school districts are starting to respond.
CUSD voted to leave the National School Boards Association back in October, and Dysart Unified School District voted to leave the ASBA earlier this month.
Perhaps most telling was this past November’s elections. Most of the bonds and overrides affecting Arizona school districts in suburban areas failed. (In many cases, they weren’t even close.) And in Virginia, Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the race for Governor with many believing that education was the central issue.
We can’t allow this momentum to subside.
With the close of this year just days away, we’re about to head into 2022 where there will be plenty of contentious elections across our state. And while we should focus on the important races for Governor, U.S. Senate, and more, we can’t afford to ignore what’s happening in our schools.
Start doing your research as soon as possible to see who’s running for school boards in your area—and what they stand for. Students and parents need school board members who will put them first. And remember, whether or not you have kids, what happens in our schools not only affects our state today, but it can impact your future.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Nov 12, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
People are fed up. And parents, in particular, are frustrated with school boards across the state. Now, they are starting to speak up. But it’s not just with their voices at local school board meetings. Last week, they spoke up at the ballot box.
Across Maricopa County, multiple bond and override elections were held affecting various school districts. And in a year that didn’t include a midterm or presidential election, you would expect a low-turnout election like this one to benefit the funding proponents.
But the results were very telling.
Most of the bonds and overrides affecting school districts in suburban areas failed. And in many cases, they weren’t even close.
Override continuations were voted down in the Buckeye, Agua Fria, Liberty, and Litchfield school districts while bonds went unapproved in the Higley, Cave Creek, and Queen Creek school districts. A budget increase for the school district in Fountain Hills also failed.
The only suburban areas that were exceptions were Kyrene and Chandler. This must have the left in a tizzy.
For years, teachers’ unions and corporate media, like AZ Central, have pushed the narrative that voters share their belief that schools are underfunded. But this is not true. The Arizona Supreme Court even blew the “underfunded” narrative to pieces in a ruling against Prop 208 back in August. Now, voters appear to be on to their game.
After all, it’s hard to get voters to buy in to more funding when a former superintendent is indicted on 18 counts related to procurement fraud, misuse of public monies, fraudulent schemes and practices, and more. That all happened in Higley—and it went largely ignored by the media. Interestingly enough, Higley had one of the largest gaps in this election, voting down the bond 55% to 45%.
But make no mistake. This election wasn’t just about funding. Parents have gotten sick and tired of school closures, masks on kids, and the way school districts turned their backs on them and their children during the pandemic.
They’re frustrated with school districts that are hiding curriculum while remaining committed to Critical Race Theory and all the rest of the woke culture that has taken over many public schools. And they’re outraged about being labeled “domestic terrorists” just because they pushback on concerns they have with their children’s schools.
While the bond and override elections often get ignored, they should serve as a wake-up call for Red for Ed and the teachers’ unions. But given the echo chamber they operate in—along with the endless cheerleading they get from the media—don’t expect them to make any changes to their radical strategy.
In fact, if the response here is anything like the response to the election in Virginia, they’ll probably just double down on labeling anyone who doesn’t vote the way they want them to as a racist. But that hasn’t proven to be a winning strategy. And if the left doesn’t want to wake up to that reality, maybe more voters will.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Oct 26, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
When lawmakers fought to pass SB1485 earlier this year, legislation designed to clean up Arizona’s early voter list, the radical left and mainstream media went ballistic. Their attacks against the bill were relentless, ill-informed, and unhinged. Not only did they argue that mail-in voter fraud really isn’t a problem, they declared that any attempt at stopping ballots being mailed to ineligible voters is nothing short of Jim Crow.
It didn’t matter to them the stories that almost everyone has heard or experienced personally. Like the story of a sitting US Congressman who received a mail-in ballot for his mother who had passed away 10 years ago.
Or how in one case, a voter’s cousin moved out of the country in 2011. The county was notified of the move, and no ballot was received in 2012 or 2014. Then in 2016, ballots started arriving once again. Not only had her cousin moved 5 years prior and informed the county, but she had also only ever voted in person and wasn’t on PEVL. And despite additional notifications that her cousin had moved, another ballot was received in 2018 and for this year’s local election.
State Representative Travis Grantham received one in the mail too – for his sister who hasn’t lived here for 15 years and votes in California.
Why would anyone be OK with a mail-in voting system that is this sloppy? Even for those skeptical about the concerns of voter fraud, the sheer waste of taxpayer money associated with sending ballots to ineligible voters is reason enough to merit reform and stop the abuse.
Yet incredibly, the response from election officials has been to shrug their shoulders. For them, it doesn’t matter if a ballot is sent to the wrong address because someone would have to willfully commit a crime and forge the voter’s signature. Did you catch that? Creating opportunities for fraud isn’t a big deal because we have laws on the books against fraud.
Following that logic, everyone should rest at ease and get rid of their home security systems. Haven’t they heard? Breaking and entering is already illegal. No need to have alarms and deterrents because an individual would have to willfully commit a crime to break into their home.
The notion that we don’t need mechanisms in place to deter voter fraud is tantamount to believing that our elections should be conducted on the honor system. No proof of citizenship? No problem, just check a box on our voter registration form. We will believe that you’re a US Citizen. No ID to vote? Don’t worry, we trust that you are who you say you are.
It’s a laughable response to a serious problem. And the fact that voters have witnessed this problem during this off-year all-mail election lines up perfectly with one of the Audit Report findings. Over 23,000 early ballots were mailed to and cast by individuals who had moved prior to the ballots even being sent by the county.
That’s why maintaining clean and current voter rolls is imperative, and it’s why the Audit Report included it repetitively as a recommendation to lawmakers. Ballots would not be mailed to ineligible voters if the voter rolls were clean and up to date.
Additionally, lawmakers need to look at the statutes authorizing these ballot-by-mail elections. Every election must allow for an in-person voting option. An all-mail election is voter suppression, suppressing the votes of citizens who do not trust voting by mail, prefer to vote in person, or perhaps cannot even receive and send mail or have unreliable mail service.
Arizonans don’t want honor system voting. We want an election system that is both accessible and secure – where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. We want to trust that voter rolls are clean, and that fraud is deterred and punished when it does occur.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Oct 9, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
Laws are meaningless if they aren’t enforced, are misapplied or misconstrued. The duly elected Arizona legislature crafts and passes election bills, and the Governor signs them into law. The Secretary of State, however, is tasked with prescribing “rules to achieve and maintain the maximum degree of correctness, impartiality, uniformity and efficiency” in implementing those laws.
This is done through the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM). But instead of crafting this with “impartiality” to attain the “maximum degree of correctness” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs seems intent on subverting state law in some instances, obfuscating in others, and as highlighted in a previous article, doing an end-run around a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld an Arizona election integrity practice.
The good news is that Hobbs doesn’t have unilateral authority to do this. She was required to submit this draft manual to Attorney General Brnovich and Governor Ducey by October 1st. Both have to sign off on the draft manual for it to go into effect. If they decline, we stick with the 2019 manual and Hobbs’s changes die.
Sending Illegally Registered Non-Citizens Instructions on How to Re-Register to Vote
Until the 2020 election, the state was operating under the manual from 2014 produced by then Secretary of State Ken Bennett. This is because Secretary Michelle Reagan did not submit a draft in 2016 and in 2018 Ducey declined to approve her changes.
Some areas of law have not changed since then, but the procedures manual has. One of these instances is around noncitizens who are registered to vote, individuals most often listed as “federal only” voters.
The 2014 manual requires the Secretary of State to send County Recorders juror questionnaires they receive on which an individual has indicated they are not a US citizen. The manual instructs Recorders to check if the individual is registered to vote and, if so, cancel the registration. Further, it encourages Recorders to then notify the County Attorney or Attorney General. Why? Because the individual has either perjured themselves on the juror form (a crime) or they are not a US citizen and fraudulently registered to vote (also a crime).
Compare this to Katie Hobbs’s manual. In it, Hobbs instructs Recorders to send these individuals a notice informing them of their indication of not being a citizen on a juror questionnaire and that they have 35 days to send in Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC). If they send in DPOC, they become a “full ballot” voter. If they don’t, then the registration will be cancelled.
However, Hobbs’s manual goes a step further by instructing Recorder’s to send a notice of cancellation to the individual that actually gives instructions on how to re-register. And it has no mention of informing the County Attorney or Attorney General to investigate what has been committed, likely a felony act.
End Run Around Brnovich v. DNC
In Arizona, counties can conduct elections by precinct polling locations or vote centers. For precinct polling, voters can only vote in their assigned precinct. If they show up at a wrong location, election workers are instructed to direct the voter to the correct precinct. If the voter insists on voting, they can cast a provisional ballot instead of going to the correct location. However, they are informed that unless they prove they are eligible to vote in that precinct, the ballot won’t tallied.
Democrats sued over the law. The case was taken all the way to the US Supreme Court and this summer the Court decided. The opinion in Brnovich v. DNC completely upheld this out-of-precinct prohibition. In it, Justice Alito writes “precinct-based voting has a long pedigree in the United States, and the policy of not counting out-of-precinct ballots is widespread.”
But it seems Katie Hobbs doesn’t care about what the highest court in the nation says, because she inserted a few short lines in the manual this year directing election officials to duplicate these provisional ballots and tally the votes for elections for which they are eligible. This is a total end-run around state law and the US Supreme Court. It’s also a practice Justice Alito expressly mentioned in the majority opinion, writing that “partially counting out-of-precinct ballots would complicate the process of tabulation and could lead to disputes and delay.” This change must be rejected.
Delayed Cleanup of Mail-In Ballot Rolls (SB1485)
It doesn’t stop there. This past session, Republican legislators passed SB1485. The law requires counties to send a notice to voters on the Permanent Early Voter List (now Active Early Voter List) who have not voted in any election for the past two election cycles. If the voter fails to respond to the notice within 90 days, they are removed from AEVL and would have to vote in-person or re-enroll in the program to receive a mail-in ballot.
Though disagreement exists about whether this bill allows counties to look “retroactively” at the last two election cycles of non-voting to immediately start sending notices, or whether they must wait for a voter to not vote in 2022 and 2024 before sending a notice, many lawmakers who passed it and the organizations who advocated for its passage, SB1485 was always intended to take effect immediately. It is a reasonable interpretation of the bill and the intent of the bill’s sponsor.
A top election lawyer in the nation agrees. Hans von Spakovsky, whom President Trump appointed to his Presidential Advisory Council on Election Integrity in 2017, served on the Federal Election Commission, and was a litigator in the Justice Department, opined that “SB1485 will go into effect immediately after passage, not in 2026 as some have claimed.”
Attorney General Brnovich should issue his own opinion affirming this interpretation and require this change in the EPM, before signing his approval.
Procedures for Signature Verification
Lastly, with the findings in the Audit Report and a recent article about Cochise County Recorder David Stevens on ballot envelopes, it is apparent that there is a lack of uniformity in how signatures on early ballot envelopes are verified and that there are areas of concern.
For instance, the report from EchoMail and the most recent response from Maricopa County indicate that before election workers look at mail in ballots, a private company scans them all, downgrades the image quality, and then hands them over to election officials. The County then compares these downgraded scans of ballot envelopes to the signature on file to, somehow, come to the conclusion that the handwriting matches. In Cochise County, Stevens says they compare the actual ballot envelope to voter registration files, not low-quality scans.
Unfortunately, the process isn’t spelled out in statute, so the EPM is used to ensure procedures are in place to comply with the laws that do exist – and that there is uniformity. Nowhere in statute or in the EPM does it say counties could or should use a private company to scan these and that the scans, instead of the physical envelopes, can or should be used for signature verification.
This is certainly an area that Brnovich should push to ensure the procedures in the EPM first and foremost comply with statute and the spirit of the law, but secondly are uniformly enforced around the state.
What We Can Do
These are just four areas of concern, and there are many others.
The Free Enterprise Club will be sending a letter to the Attorney General and Governor Ducey with a detailed list of issues in the EPM, but they need to hear from constituents too. That’s why Arizonans should let them know that we want an election system where it easy to vote, and hard to cheat. That means that Governor Ducey and Attorney General Brnovich should REJECT every proposed change by Katie Hobbs that either violates state law or attempts to rewrite it. They can stop this from happening, and we need to encourage them to do so.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Oct 1, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
Easy to vote and hard to cheat. That should be the benchmark for every single election we have.
Voters should not have to choose between having a secure election or having an accessible election. They can have both. And in Arizona, we’ve certainly made our elections accessible.
But that hasn’t always been the case with the security of our elections. And the results of the Arizona audit issued in September show just that.
These are significant issues that need to be addressed. Thankfully, the audit report made multiple recommendations that are common-sense election integrity policies.
And the most important one is something we’ve been saying for years:
Mail-in voting should incorporate an objective standard of verification for early voter identification, similar to the ID requirements required for in person voting.
Yes. The Arizona audit recommended instituting universal ID. And that’s why right now is the perfect time for the Arizonans for Voter ID Act.
This initiative for the November 2022 ballot would:
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- Improve existing in-person voter ID.
- Establish voter ID for mail-in ballots.
- Deter ballot harvesting by enhancing voter ID requirements.
- Provide a FREE voter ID option to lawfully registered Arizona voters who need it for voting.
Think about what this would mean for future elections. For one, we would no longer need to rely on a highly subjective process to verify signatures, which can often lead to illegal votes being counted and legal votes not being counted.
In addition, this initiative would make it nearly impossible for someone to vote in our state after they had moved.
And to top it all off, requiring universal voter ID would not be cumbersome.
The people of Arizona already provide basic identification in their daily lives to purchase alcohol or cigarettes, obtain a driver’s license, board a commercial flight, donate blood, open a bank account, purchase a firearm, receive unemployment benefits, obtain auto insurance, purchase or rent a home, and more.
It’s commonsense that we should we require the same for something as important as voting in an election. Thankfully, most Arizonans agree.
Statewide polling from earlier this year shows that an overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support voter ID requirements. In fact, every race and ethnicity support voter ID, along with the majority of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats.
Now, the audit’s recommendation makes it clear. It’s time for universal voter ID in Arizona. It would ensure that our elections are still easy to vote in while making it that much harder to cheat. And that’s something every single resident in Arizona should be able to get behind.
You Can Make a Difference
Elections should be both accessible and secure. That’s why universal voter ID is so important. We must protect the ballot of every qualified Arizona voter and ensure the integrity of our elections.
Find out more about this initiative and what YOU can do to ensure it makes it onto the November 2022 ballot.
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