Arizona: Fewer voters in Arizona election, but latest cost $1M more | Associated Press

Fearing another botched election, Arizona’s most populous county opened twice as many polling spots for a special election this week than for the March presidential primary. This go-round cost about $1 million more, even though Maricopa County election officials knew far fewer voters would turn out to vote on education funding and pension overhaul plans. But those officials say the extra spending was necessary to rebuild lost confidence after some people waited as long as five hours to cast their vote for the Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The county cut the number of polling places from 200 in 2012 to just 60 in March to save money. Tuesday, there were 116 places to vote, county elections department spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew said Thursday.

Arizona: Threat of hackers keeps Arizona’s online voting program small | KPHO

Thousands of Arizona service members were offered the chance to cast a ballot over the internet in Tuesday’s special election, but state and county officials say the threat of hackers makes widespread online voting unlikely anytime soon. Election officials sent ballots to more than 4,000 Arizonans stationed out-of-state or overseas ahead of the election, either by mail or through the state’s relatively new online process. The number of ballots cast online wasn’t immediately available, but five counties distributed at least 2,172 electronic ballots, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. “I mean these people are overseas serving our country, serving us, so we want to make sure they’re able to vote,” said Maricopa County Recorder’s Office spokesperson Elizabeth Bartholomew. Maricopa County sent 1,205 electronic ballots to Arizonans in several countries, according to state data.

Arizona: Fact Check: Michele Reagan’s duties don’t include collecting ballots | The Arizona Republic

On the day of the presidential preference election, March 22, Reagan asked a member of her staff to collect ballots from workers in the Capitol’s Executive Tower, including the Governor’s Office. Reagan admitted collecting ballots in an interview with Capitol Media Services. This admission elicited cries of hypocrisy from critics who said she had violated House Bill 2023, which outlaws most early ballot collection. Reagan had supported the legislation, which Gov. Doug Ducey signed on March 9. The legislation, which takes effect this summer, makes unauthorized ballot collection a Class 6 felony. The law, intended to prevent voter fraud, exempts election officials and postal workers engaged in their “official duties,” as well as a voter’s family members, caregiver, or member of their household. Reagan told Capitol Media Services her actions would not have violated the law had it been in effect because she and her staff would be considered “election officials” performing “official duties.”

Arizona: Hours-long lines, goofs with ballot materials. Why can’t Arizona hold elections? | Los Angeles Times

When the Supreme Court threw out major elements of the Voting Rights Act three years ago, Maricopa County in Arizona moved quickly to lower the cost of holding elections. Among its first moves was to reduce the number of polling centers from 200 to 60. With fewer locations, the state allowed voters to choose any polling station in the county. The hope was to make voting more convenient and encourage more people to cast their ballots by mail. It hasn’t turned out that way. The result: stories of having to wait five hours to vote in the March primary election for president, a call to impeach Arizona’s secretary of state, three lawsuits and a Justice Department inquiry. “I don’t know what the right word is to express it,” Arizona Atty. Gen. Mark Brnovich said at a news conference Thursday, speaking of his anger at the situation “as an Arizonan and as attorney general.”

Arizona: Renewed Republican Redistricting Revenge! Arizona Legislature Using Budgetary Power To Possibly Limit Map Defense | Arizona’s Politics

n the wake of two GOP defeats at the U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans at the Arizona Legislature are using their budgetary powers to sweep $695,000 from the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (“AIRC”). The funds were to be used in defending a state court action brought by key Republican lawmakers (and others) as that case heads towards trial next year. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed a new budget into law yesterday. It contains $1.1M for the entire Independent Redistricting Commission budget. That amount is not enough to cover the expected legal expenses for the Leach v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission case, which has already cost taxpayers $1.5M. Primarily because the Leach case had been placed on the back burner (by the parties and the court) while the (GOP-controlled) Legislature brought its constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court (2015) and Republican interests brought their challenge to the maps to the Supreme Court (2016), the AIRC currently has $695,000 in unspent appropriations from 2014 and 2015.

Arizona: Lawyer calls for impeachment of Secretary of State Reagan | Arizona Daily Sun

A Chandler lawyer called for the impeachment of Republican Secretary of State Michele Reagan on Friday after she failed to properly inform the public ahead of the May 17 special election. It’s unlikely that Arizona’s GOP-controlled Legislature would agree to move forward with an impeachment of a fellow Republican and former colleague, but attorney Tom Ryan said it’s necessary because Reagan intentionally hid an error resulting in hundreds of thousands of voters not receiving their election guides in time for next week’s special election. He also accused Reagan of campaigning in support of Proposition 123, one of the measures on the ballot in next week’s election. Ryan works on a campaign to oppose the same measure. “Here’s our problem: We have a secretary of state who fundamentally does not understand her job,” he said. “She is not supposed to be putting her thumb on the scales.”

Arizona: Attorney general won’t try to postpone special election despite ‘fiasco’ | Arizona Daily Star

Attorney General Mark Brnovich refused Thursday to try to postpone Tuesday’s special election despite foul-ups by Secretary of State Michele Reagan, saying there’s nothing in state law to permit that. At a hastily called press conference, Brnovich unloaded on Reagan for failing to comply with state laws requiring voters to get ballot pamphlets explaining the two issues before they got their actual early ballots. And he said there needs to be an investigation of why Reagan hid that information from the public for weeks.

Arizona: Attorney General: Secretary of State broke law, but May special election to proceed | KTAR

An Arizona special election will go forward despite the secretary of state’s office illegally failing to mail publicity pamphlets to more than 200,000 households, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Thursday. The attorney general did not pull any punches and said his office was launching an inquiry into the latest voting debacle in Arizona. “We do believe the secretary of state did violate Arizona law,” he told media. “Unfortunately, there is nothing in the statutes to provide an adequate remedy.” Brnovich said Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office has admitted it violated the law by not mailing pamphlets to more than 200,000 households with multiple voters, but a state law gave his office little recourse to correct the error with just one week to the election.

Arizona: Secretary Of State: No Authority To Cancel Special Election Over Missed Pamphlets | Capitol Media

The Arizona Secretary of State’s office says there’s no authority to cancel next week’s election despite a foul-up over sending publicity pamphlets to voters. Attorney Tom Ryan filed a formal complaint this week asking Attorney General Mark Brnovich to void the May 17 vote. Ryan said Arizona law required the pamphlets describing Propositions 123 and 124 and giving pro and con arguments be sent out by April 10. “That did not happen for substantial numbers of voters,” Ryan said. “And by our estimate could be as many as 400,000 voters that did not get this in a timely fashion.”

Arizona: Ballot harvesting law could impact Latinos and seniors in general election | Cronkite News

Arizona’s new law that criminalizes the collection of voters’ early ballots by volunteers could impact the ability of the elderly and Latinos to cast their votes, according to local voter outreach groups. For the staff and volunteers who work with Latino-focused voter advocacy groups, ballot collecting is a means of outreach that accompanies voter registration, translating ballots and going door-to-door to remind people to vote. Although there is no available data on the number of ballots collected from people on the early voting list, the advocacy organizations’ staff and volunteers interviewed by Cronkite News said the new law will hinder their work and add another hurdle for voters to jump.

Arizona: Reagan won’t cancel next week’s special election | Arizona Capitol Times

Secretary of State Michele Reagan won’t cancel next week’s special election even though her office failed to mail out on time more than 200,000 pamphlets with details of what’s on the ballot. Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts conceded the law about when voters need to get the brochures was broken. And while saying the fault lies with an outside company that made up mailing lists, Roberts acknowledged the foul-up is Reagan’s responsibility. But Roberts rejected the contention by attorney Tom Ryan that her failure is fatal and the election for Propositions 123 and 124 cannot take place as scheduled this coming Tuesday. “There’s nothing in statute that we’re finding that would allow this office to not allow the election itself to move forward,’’ Robert said.

Arizona: Glitch delays mailing guides to 400,000 voters ahead of special election | Associated Press

Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office failed to send out publicity pamphlets for next week’s special election to more than 200,000 households with multiple voters in all but Pima and Maricopa counties, her spokesman said Monday. The error has prompted a Chandler attorney to prepare a request to the attorney general to postpone the May 17 election. Voters are being asked in Proposition 123 to boost withdraws from the state land trust to fund education and in Proposition 124 to overhaul the state police and firefighter pension system. Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts said the pamphlets should have reached voters 10 days before early voting started on April 20 and blamed a private vendor for the problem. By the time the mistake was discovered and new voter guides mailed and received, it was May 6.

Arizona: Dark money group leads last-minute effort to speed up campaign finance changes | Tucson Sentinel

Arizona is already poised to relax rules regarding so-called “dark money” groups starting next year, but a last-minute amendment from the state Senate could make the changes go into effect in less than a month. The proposal to accelerate the dark money regulation changes came late Thursday, as an amendment to HB 2296, and originated with the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, a dark money group that spent about $1.7 million during the 2014 election cycle.

Arizona: Nonprofit Sues Arizona for Voting Records | CNS

Arizona asked a nonprofit watchdog for $50,000 for election registration records, but provides the information to political parties for free, Project Vote claims in court. Project Vote, a nonpartisan nonprofit advocate for voter registration, claims the state violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. It sued Secretary of State Michele Reagan, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell and Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez on April 27 in Federal Court. Purcell’s office has been lambasted since many Maricopa County voters had to wait five hours in line to vote in the state’s March 22 Presidential Preference Election.

Arizona: Judge dismisses challenge to Arizona presidential primary | Associated Press

A judge on Tuesday threw out a challenge to the results of Arizona’s problematic presidential primary despite evidence that there were glitches in the election. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Gass ruled that a Tucson man challenging the results hadn’t proven fraud and hadn’t shown long lines in Maricopa County or registration problems statewide with the election would have changed the results. “I’m going to find that as a matter of law…plaintiff just hasn’t met their burden,” Gass said. “To prove fraud, it’s clear and convincing evidence. It’s an incredibly high burden. And it’s a burden that’s very difficult to prove.” The ruling came at the close of two days of testimony. Gass noted that while there were problems with the election, throwing out the results would mean that more than 1 million people who voted in the March 22 primary would be disenfranchised. “I can’t find that one, there were illegal votes and two…I can’t find it would have made a difference in the outcome of the election,” he said. “The election would have been the same.”

Arizona: Judge tosses lawsuit challenging presidential primary results | Arizona Republic

After two days of testimony, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed to invalidate the March Arizona presidential preference election. The suit was filed against Secretary of State Michele Reagan and every Arizona county by attorney Michael Kielsky on behalf of a Tucson man named John Brakey, who says his occupation is “election integrity activist.” In their pleadings, they alleged that voter-registration requests were mishandled and the number of polling places in Maricopa County was improperly cut. Hearings Monday and Tuesday were to determine if there was legal cause to go forward with trial. The state and the counties countered that the complaint was neither timely nor adequately prepared. And they questioned whether election law applied to presidential preference elections. Judge David Gass took the matter under advisement but allowed the evidentiary hearing to go forward.

Arizona: Botched Maricopa ballots will cost taxpayers $400,000 | KPNX

Maricopa County taxpayers will have to fork over almost $400,000 to make up for a misprint on 2 million ballots in a May special election. Half of the money will come from the county recorder’s office budget, and the remainder will have to be approved by the County Board, recorder’s office spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew told 12 News Monday. The botched ballots come in the wake of a presidential primary fiasco last month that saw hours-long waits in line. County Recorder Helen Purcell admited she “screwed up” by cutting the number of polling places by 70 percent from four years ago. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating what happened. Separate lawsuits have been filed in county and federal courts, alleging citizens were deprived of their right to vote.

Arizona: Voters testify in Arizona presidential primary challenge | Associated Press

Voters dismayed with Arizona’s problematic presidential primary voiced frustrations with long lines and registration issues Monday during a hearing for a court challenge to have the election results thrown out. Testimony came in the wake of the March 22 election where Arizona’s most populous county drastically cut polling places. The move emboldened Tucson resident John Brakey, elections integrity activist to sue Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan and all 15 counties. In a courtroom packed with elections officials and onlookers, voters described waiting in long lines and arguing with elections about problems with their party affiliation. “The judge is going to have to extrapolate and see how that is a representative example of the variety of similar things that happened to people,” said Michael Kielsky, Brakey’s attorney.

Arizona: Spanish-language screw-up on Maricopa County election ballots | KPNX

In yet another elections embarrassment for Maricopa County, two million ballots were printed with the wrong Spanish-language description for a ballot proposition May 17, resulting in a massive reprinting of ballots and mailing of postcards to correct the mistake. This latest screw-up was uncovered the same day the county recorder’s office filed its formal response to a U.S Justice Department investigation of the botched presidential primary in March, which forced many voters to stand in line for hours. Many voters claimed they were disenfranchised by elections officials huge cut in polling places for the primary.

Arizona: Officials: Long lines at Arizona primary affected minorities and non-minorities equally | Associated Press

Election officials in Arizona’s largest county on Friday told the U.S. Justice Department that minority and non-minority voters were equally affected by problems during the state’s presidential primary election. Recorder Helen Purcell said in a 12-page letter to the department that wealthy, predominantly white parts of the Phoenix area saw the same long polling place lines as poor and minority parts of the county. The statement came in response to a Justice Department inquiry about problems during the March 22 election as it tries to determine if voting-rights laws were broken. Purcell again apologized for the long lines, as she has repeatedly since Election Day. “I sincerely apologize to all of the voters who had to wait in long lines,” Purcell wrote. “The burdens of long waiting times were county-wide and did not disproportionately burden areas with substantial racial or language minority populations.”

Arizona: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Voting Districts Drawn by Independent Panel | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld Arizona state legislative districts drawn by an independent commission, rejecting claims by Republican voters that slight population deviations favoring Democrats violated the Constitution. The Constitution “does not demand mathematical perfection” when states equalize population among legislative districts, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for a unanimous court. Republican voters claimed that the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, created by a 2000 voter initiative to reduce partisan influence over political representation, overpopulated GOP-leaning districts and underpopulated Democrat-leaning ones, effectively increasing Democratic voting strength.

Arizona: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s Redrawn Legislative Map | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld an Arizona state legislative map drawn by an independent redistricting commission, rejecting a challenge from Republicans who said the map was too favorable to Democrats. The court last year upheld the commission’s role in drawing congressional maps, ruling that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing district lines less partisan by creating an independent redistricting commission. Wednesday’s decision in Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, No 14-232, concerned a challenge from voters who said the state map the commission drew after the 2010 census violated the principle of “one person one vote” and was infected by unconstitutional partisanship.

Arizona: Judge to hear challenge to Arizona presidential primary | Associated Press

A Maricopa County judge is set to hold a hearing on a lawsuit seeking to have the results of Arizona’s presidential primary thrown out. The hearing set for Tuesday before Judge David Gass comes as the Arizona attorney general’s office want the case dismissed. It argues state law doesn’t allow the March 22 election results to be contested. The attorney general, representing Secretary of State Michele Reagan, said in a court filing that there were problems with the election and Reagan wants to see them fixed, but state law doesn’t allow the legal challenge to proceed. “The contest statutes only apply to specific categories of elections, and the presidential preference election does not fall within the scope” of those laws, the filing by Assistant Attorney General James Driscoll-MacEachron said.

Arizona: Democratic Party, Clinton and Sanders campaigns to sue Arizona over voting rights | The Washington Post

The Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will sue the state of Arizona over voter access to the polls after the state’s presidential primary last month left thousands of residents waiting as long as five hours to vote. The lawsuit, which will be filed on Friday, focuses on Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, where voters faced the longest lines on March 22 during the Democratic and Republican primaries after the county cut the number of polling places by 85 percent since 2008. Arizona’s “alarmingly inadequate number of voting centers resulted in severe, inexcusable burdens on voters county-wide, as well as the ultimate disenfranchisement of untold numbers of voters who were unable or unwilling to wait in intolerably long lines,” the lawsuit says. The lack of voting places was “particularly burdensome” on Maricopa County’s black, Hispanic and Native American communities, which had fewer polling locations than white communities and in some cases no places to vote at all, the lawsuit alleges.

Arizona: Lawsuit Alleges Voter Suppression in Presidential Preference Election | Phoenix New Times

For all those Arizonans out there worried about voter suppression during the presidential preference vote, rest assured that a local activist with a history of taking on problematic elections is trying to get to the bottom of what happened here. John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections) filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against election officials, both accusing them of misconduct and demanding a partial recount of ballots. As New Times has written previously, Maricopa County’s attempt to save money by drastically cutting the number of polling stations for the March 22 election totally backfired. Thousands waited more than two hours to vote – some as long as five hours – and the lines at some polling stations still were wrapped around the block as the first results trickled in at 8 p.m.

Arizona: Tucson man files lawsuit challenging Presidential Preference Election | Tucson News Now

A Tucson man filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging the results of Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election. John Brakey said in a statement the lawsuit alleges that officials improperly changed voters’ party affiliations that resulted in voters not being allowed to cast their ballots, failing to provide ballots to qualified voters and lack of security for voter databases. The lawsuit filed in Superior Court calls on the certification of the election, which happened on April 4, to be canceled. He doesn’t want a new certification until “the election is properly conducted and in compliance with every Arizona law.” He said the problems are significant enough to have altered the results for both Republicans and Democrats in the election.

Arizona: U.S. Seeks Answers to Delays at Phoenix-Area Polls on Primary Day | The New York Times

The Justice Department has opened an investigation over the decisions that led to the chaotic presidential primaries in Arizona’s most populous county, where thousands of voters waited up to five hours to cast ballots and thousands more were barred from participating because of mistakes and confusion over party registration. In a letter dated Friday, Chris Herron, chief of the voting section of the department’s Civil Rights Division, cited “allegations of disproportionate burden in waiting times to vote on election days in some areas with substantial racial or language minority populations” as he outlined a list of requests to the Maricopa County recorder, Helen Purcell. They include the reasons for reducing the number of polling places by 70 percent in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and the procedures used to log party registration in the rolls. Ms. Purcell has said the cuts were primarily a cost-cutting measure.

Arizona: Records reveal scope of wait times in Arizona primary | Associated Press

Five polling places in metro Phoenix still had voters in line after midnight during Arizona’s botched presidential primary two weeks ago, including one location where the final ballot was cast at nearly 1 a.m., according to county records. The Associated Press obtained a document from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office that shows the time when each of the 60 polling sites closed in the March 22 primary, providing a more complete picture of the abysmal wait voters experienced. Votes were still being cast past 10 p.m. in 20 of the 60 locations, meaning residents had to wait at least three hours to choose a candidate in the White House race. The polls closed at 7 p.m., but anyone who was in line at that point could vote.

Arizona: Voting Rights Act rulings’ negative effects manifested in Arizona | Washington Times

Ever since the Supreme Court poked a hole in the Voting Rights Act, activists have been warning of devastating effects on average voters showing up at the polls. Last month they got their case in Arizona, where some voters said they waited in lines longer than five hours to vote in the primary elections after Maricopa County, one of the most sprawling in the country, cut its number of polling places from more than 400 in 2008 down to 60 this year. Other voters said they had their registration secretly changed without their knowledge, locking them out of the “closed” primary, in which voters had to have declared their affiliation in advance to be able to vote in either party’s contest. Supporters of Sen. Bernard Sanders alleged dirty tricks, saying the vast majority of secret switches were those who were changed from Democrat to independent. “We made some horrendous mistakes, and I apologize for that. I can’t go back and undo it. I wish that I could, but I cannot,” Helen Purcell, the Maricopa County recorder, told a state legislative investigation last week. “I can only say we felt we were using the best information that we had available to us.”