A group supporting a sweeping new Republican-backed election law wants the Secretary of State’s office to invalidate some petitions demanding a voter referendum. Wednesday’s letter from lawyers for a group calling itself Stop Voter Fraud demanded that Secretary of State Ken Bennett throw out signatures on petitions collected by four circulators because they’re allegedly felons. Bennett spokesman Matt Roberts said the Secretary of State by law can’t toss the petitions. “They’re asking us to do things that we’re not statutorily able to do,” Roberts said. “Usually these things move through the courts and I expect this to be no different.” The bill was backed by Republicans and passed in the last hours of the legislative session in June over the opposition of Democrats. They called it a thinly veiled effort to keep Republicans in power by creating new hurdles for low-income voters and some candidates.
The legislation seeks to trim Arizona’s permanent early voting list and limit who may return mail-in ballots for voters. It also ups the number of signatures third-party candidates must gather to appear on the ballot, among a host of other provisions.
Democratic lawmakers, voting rights groups and third-party politicians had fought the measure and created a coalition to collect signatures once it passed. They turned in more than 146,000 signatures on Sept. 11.
More than 139,000 valid signatures have been certified and counties have nearly three weeks to check samples against voter records. Less than 85,000 valid signatures are needed to block the new election law and put it on the November 2014 ballot.
Full Article: Group opposing voter referendum on new election law wants some signatures tossed.