Arizona: GOP may sue to keep independents out of primaries | The Verde Independent

Republicans may try to block independents from participating in future party primaries after their turnout in last month’s election — close to one vote out of every seven — may have affected some races. A.J. LaFaro, chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, said he wants the party’s lawyers to find ways around the 1998 voter-approved measure which allows independents to participate in choosing the nominees of any recognized party. He said independents who may not believe in the party’s “conservative values’ are affecting who ultimately runs under the GOP banner. Carolyn Cox, his Pima County counterpart, said she agrees that independents may be having an unwanted influence on GOP politics. “I just think it’s kind of unfortunate when people who are not in the party are selecting who the party is going to have as a candidate,’ she said. The state party isn’t quite ready to make the push toward closing the primary — yet.

Arizona: 2 Arizona counties tally more ballots than voters | Arizona Republic

Voter turnout during last month’s primary races was a little too good in some counties, Arizona elections officials said Friday. Some precincts in northern Arizona tallied more ballots cast than there are registered voters, the Arizona Capitol Times reported. According to officials, errors made by poll workers and elections officials in Apache and Navajo counties led to the miscalculations. Initial reports from some precincts showed a turnout of anywhere from 200 to 400 percent. In Apache County, the Puerco West precinct reportedly had 100 votes cast, but only 23 voters are registered there. The voter turnout added up to 434 percent. Similarly, the Fort Defiance precinct cited 1,046 ballots cast though only 357 voters reside there. As a result, turnout was shown to be 293 percent.

Arizona: Just 21 Arizona voters used new two-tier system | Arizona Daily Sun

Fears that thousands of voters would be denied the right to vote for state officials this year were proven wrong in the state’s first use of a two-tier voting system. Just 21 voters statewide who registered using a federal form for Arizona elections were forced to only vote for federal candidates in the Aug. 26 primary, Secretary of State Ken Bennett said Monday. Bennett created the system last year after the U.S. Supreme Court said Arizona can’t require additional identification from voters using the federal “motor-voter” form. Attorney General Tom Horne said that conflicted with state law requiring proof of citizenship. So Arizona let people who didn’t provide ID vote just for federal races, meaning they couldn’t vote for statewide officers such as the governor or state legislators. Instead, those who registered using only the federal form were given ballots with only U.S. House of Representatives races on them.

Arizona: Peoria checks options for council vote | Daily News Sun

Peoria officials continue to examine their choices for conducting this year’s election for City Council representing the Mesquite District a week after a federal judge ordered ballot counting stopped. The ruling came after a pair of errors by Maricopa County elections officials and the county’s printing firm that left one of the candidate’s names off the ballot. U.S. District Judge David Campbell ordered city and county officials to come up with a voting plan for the sprawling, mostly undeveloped district — Peoria’s largest — after candidate Ken Krieger sought a temporary restraining order preventing the election from continuing. Krieger’s name was left off the original ballot due to an error by county Elections Director Karen Osborne and was omitted from a replacement ballot due to a mistake by the county’s election-ballot printing firm, Runbeck Election Services of Tempe.

Arizona: Flawed Cochise County election returns recounted | Tucson Sentinel

Primary election tallies from Cochise County have been updated, after being temporarily pulled from statewide totals because incorrect results were reported Tuesday night. “We’re still trying to figure out what exactly happened,” an election official said. The results uploaded Tuesday showed “unusually high” turnout in Cochise primaries, alerting county officials that something was wrong, said Jim Vlahovich, a deputy county administrator. The data showed “more than 60 percent of the total number of registered voters had turned in ballots,” he said Wednesday. The preliminary results were pulled down early Wednesday morning, he said. “We’re still trying to figure out what exactly happened,” he said Thursday.

Arizona: Software ‘glitch’ confounds election | The Sierra Vista Herald

The interim county elections director and two independent monitors of the elections office believe they may have narrowed down where things went wrong during Tuesday’s Primary Election, which resulted in erroneous data being added to the Secretary of State’s election results. After the polls close, data is transferred electronically via modem from the ballot counting machines to the elections office. That data is then received and tabulated by an Election Systems & Software program, placed on a thumb drive, transferred from the thumb drive to a server, which then sends the data on to the state. “Somehow, when the information on the server went to the state elections system, that number got corrupted,” said Jim Vlahovich, interim director of the Cochise County Elections Office. … Elections office staff first noticed that something may be wrong on Tuesday night, when the print out of the results reported an abnormally high voter turnout of 62 percent. Then, this morning, calls to the elections office prompted further inspection, resulting in the discovery that the server used to transfer the voting data to the state had crashed.

Arizona: Federal judge halts primary over Peoria ballot issue

A federal district court judge has halted Tuesday’s controversial election for a seat on the Peoria city council. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge David Campbell honored a request by candidate Dr. Ken Krieger and issued a court order to block the counting of any votes in the Mesquite District race. A special election will be held instead. Krieger is running against Ben Toma and Bridget Binsbacher for the Mesquite council seat. Mail-in ballots have already been sent in. Krieger sued Aug. 7 after two mail-in ballots, printed on white and yellow paper, failed to include his name. A third ballot on purple paper was mailed out and did list his candidacy but the city council voted to count the flawed yellow-and-white ballots anyway.

Arizona: Dual-track election means only one race on ballot for some |

Tuesday’s primary election is a busy one for voters, with a six-way Republican contest for governor, a two-way race for the GOP nomination for attorney general and a bevy of other statewide, legislative and local races. But for up to 1,500 Arizona voters, the ballot will look surprisingly short: They will have just one race on which to vote. It marks a new chapter in Arizona elections, in which the state is distinguishing between voters who showed documents proving they are U.S. citizens and those who signed a sworn statement attesting to their citizenship.

Arizona: Pima County to do away with precinct scanners | The Explorer

Pima County will no longer make use of precinct scanners at polling locations after the Pima County Board of Supervisors rejected a measure to spend $1.8 million to replace them. The board’s decision came despite a recommendation by Pima County Election Integrity Commission (PCEIC) to keep the scanners in place since they allow for an electronic count at polling locations, serving as a way to double check ballots when they are tallied in the central count system. Bill Beard, District 1 PCEIC representative called the board’s decision frustrating, particularly since he says Pima County has a poor track record with handling elections in the past. “If the board is truly concerned about the matter, perhaps actually listening to the advisers they appointed to advise them on thing elections-related might be a good place to start,” he said, also noting that District 1’s Ally Miller was the only supervisor to vote in favor of the PCEIC’s recommendation to keep scanners in place.

Arizona: Court ruling upholds Phoenix and Tucson election dates | Arizona Republic

Phoenix and Tucson can continue to hold candidate elections in odd-numbered years after a Court of Appeals upheld a decision that the cities are not bound by a 2012 state law that aligned local elections with federal, state and county elections. The Tucson-based Court of Appeals, Division Two on Monday upheld a Pima County Superior Court ruling in favor of the cities and agreed that charter city authority supersedes state law when scheduling charter city candidate elections. The trial court injunction against state enforcement of the law remains in effect. If the law were to affect Phoenix this year, Mayor Greg Stanton and other municipal elected officials could have had their terms extended by several months or even a year because elections would have moved to even-numbered years.

Arizona: New Yavapai County equipment improves process | The Prescott Daily Courier

One fun reason not to join Yavapai County’s Permanent Early Voting List is to check out the latest high-tech voting machines. The Yavapai County Recorder’s Office and its Elections Department have brand new touch-screen voting machines that talk to users and let them know if they voted for too many or too few candidates. While that’s the most visible of the new voting equipment, the county also has new ballot scanning machines. They count ballots so fast that poll workers at vote centers will no longer scan and modem results to the main Prescott office from various voting centers around the county. Instead, vote center workers will drive to Prescott with the ballots so they can be scanned and counted on the new high-speed machines. Noting that three-fourths of voters now vote early anyway, Recorder Leslie Hoffman and Elections Director Lynn Constabile think ballot counting will get done about the same time as it has in the past, since they are restricted on when they can start. “I have a feeling it’s going to be the same amount of time,” Constabile said.

Arizona: State Senator’s death overshadows campaign | Payson Roundup

The death of state Sen. Chester Crandell last week threw the already unusual race in the district that includes Northern Gila County into deep uncertainty. Crandell’s family found him dead after he went for a ride on a young, unfamiliar horse on a Heber ranch, where he lived with his wife of 45 years. … Crandell’s death weeks before his uncontested primary left the election in deep uncertainty. The tragic turn will likely boost the prospects of former state Senator Tom O’Halleran’s campaign as an Independent. Secretary of State Ken Bennett determined that Cran­dell’s name will remain on the ballot and that the deadline has passed for write-in candidates to qualify for the primary. Instead, the Republican committee precinct chairmen from Gila, Coconino, Navajo and Apache counties will convene in Flagstaff after the primary and select a candidate whose name will appear on the November ballot along with O’Halleran’s. Write-in candidates can also still qualify for the November ballot.

Arizona: Peoria chooses options to fix election ballots fiasco | Your West Valley

New ballots for Peoria’s Mesquite District Council race have been sent out with the names of all three candidates, according to a spokeswoman for the city. The ballots should arrive to all 16,000 registered voters in the district by Saturday or Monday. Election ballot errors omitting the name of a candidate in the Peoria Mesquite District not once, but twice, resulted in a lawsuit and left Peoria officials scrambling, trying to figure out how to remedy the situation. In a special meeting by the Peoria City Council Thursday, the council recommended in a 3-2 vote, a combination of two options to try and rectify the problem: 1. Mail ballots to all registered voters in the Mesquite District and, 2. Have remote voting locations. Earlier in the day, Dr. Ken Krieger, the candidate whose name was omitted from the ballots, held a news conference, along with his attorneys outside the Maricopa County Elections offices in Phoenix, who said they filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona to stop the election in the Mesquite District because Peoria doesn’t have the authority to do it and it must be ordered by a judge.

Arizona: Peoria council candidate left off ballot — again | The Arizona Republic

Peoria City Council candidate Ken Krieger’s name was not on ballots sent out last week to more than 8,500 residents. County officials scrambled to fix their error by mailing out replacement ballots this week, but his name once again was left off. “All I wanted to be was on the ballot,” Krieger said. “I understand that mistakes can be made but when it happens twice, it’s just trampling on a person’s constitutional rights.” The repeated omission has forced Peoria officials to call an emergency City Council meeting today so council members can decide what to do next, Deputy City Clerk Linda Blas said. What that decision could be is unclear. “They’re still discussing (options),” Blas said. “The council will make the decision on what instructions they would like to give to (the) county.” Maricopa County Elections Department Director Karen Osborne said the city has various options, including a third attempt to send out the correct ballot or canceling this month’s primary election for the council district and holding it with the general election Nov. 4.

Arizona: Elections board mistake with Peoria candidate will cost taxpayers $15K | West Valley News

A Maricopa County Board of Elections’ error where a candidate’s name was left off the ballot is likely to cost taxpayers thousands of dollars. Karen Osbourne, the Maricopa County elections director, estimates it will cost taxpayers about $15,000 to mail out corrected ballots to nearly 8,500 residents. “We had 41 challenges this year, 10 days to hold and decide, and I failed to put him back on the ballot,” said Osbourne. She said she regrets the error.

Arizona: Election officials seek to avoid 2012 delay | Associated Press

Arizona’s most populous county will try to cut down on provisional ballots and speed up election results in this year’s races, officials said. The Maricopa County Elections Department is seeking to avoid a repeat of 2012, when provisional ballots prolonged an official count by nearly two weeks. County Recorder Helen Purcell said last week many voters used provisional ballots two years ago because they didn’t vote with an early ballot, the Arizona Capitol Times reported. Voters thought the early ballots were samples and threw them out, Purcell said.

Arizona: Tom Horne sues to stop Clean Elections investigation | Arizona Republic

Attorney General Tom Horne has filed a lawsuit, challenging the right of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to investigate … Attorney General Tom Horne. For a guy who says he wants the truth to come out, he’s fighting awfully hard to squelch it. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Horne’s asking that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge block the Clean Elections Commission from investigating him. Horne’s been on the hot seat for a while now. The latest scorcher comes courtesy of a former employee who claims Horne and other members of his executive staff were campaigning for his re-election on the taxpayer’s dime. Sarah Beattie produced e-mails sent from private accounts during work hours and said Horne often held strategy sessions and even gave out her work number for campaign-related calls.

Arizona: Redistricting panel urges US Supreme Court to reject challenge from state lawmakers | Arizona Capitol Times

A bid by state lawmakers to take back the power to draw congressional lines is legally flawed and should be rejected, the lead attorney for the Independent Redistricting Commission told the nation’s high court. Mary O’Grady acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution does say that the “times, places and manner” of electing members of Congress “shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof.” But in legal papers filed with the Supreme Court, O’Grady said that doesn’t necessarily mean the 90 people who serve in the Arizona House and Senate. O’Grady pointed out that the Arizona Constitution, while setting up the two legislative bodies, spells out that the people “reserve the power to propose laws and amendment to the (Arizona) constitution and to enact or reject such laws and amendments at the polls, independently of the legislature.” She said that’s exactly what happened in 2000, when voters created the redistricting commission: They constitutionally took away the power that lawmakers had had since statehood to draw both congressional and legislative lines.

Arizona: Preparing for county elections | Benson News-Sun

In preparation for the upcoming primary and general elections, Juanita Murray, director of the Elections Department and Special Districts, held a meeting for poll workers and the interested public to update them on the changes in technology that they will be able to use. “We’re 100 times more prepared for this election cycle,” Murray said. “I’m a firm believer that there is always room for improvement to make the process more efficient. One of my main goals today is to improve communication, so that when the election rolls around you’ll be able to answer any questions at the polls.” More than 300 people will be hired to help with the elections from poll workers to troubleshooters. That means a lot of training time to get them ready for the election days.

Arizona: Cesar Chavez to be removed from ballot, plans to appeal | Arizona Republic

A judge ruled Tuesday that Cesar Chavez, the former Republican who changed his name from Scott Fistler, will be removed from the primary ballot in the 7th Congressional District because hundreds of his signatures were invalid. Chavez, who acted as his own attorney in a hearing which veered from comical antics to tearful testimony, vowed to appeal the decision to the Arizona Supreme Court. He asked supporters to “funnel money” to his campaign and find him legal counsel. The ruling caps a bizarre episode in Arizona politics, one observers have called unprecedented. It attracted international media attention when The Republic revealed the full story behind Chavez, the candidate who chose the name of a deceased civil-rights leader and registered as a Democrat for political gain in the heavily Hispanic left-leaning district. He had lost two previous elections. His familiar name threatened to siphon votes in a hotly contested race to replace longtime retiring Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz.

Arizona: ‘Cesar Chavez’ removed from ballot | Politico

An Arizona congressional candidate who legally changed his name to Cesar Chavez will be removed from the Democratic primary ballot because of invalid nomination signatures, a judge ruled Tuesday. Judge John Rea ruled that almost half of the nearly 1,500 signatures gathered by the candidate formerly known as Scott Fistler to get on the Aug. 26 ballot were invalid. That put him 295 signatures shy of the 1,039 needed to qualify. Chavez, who acted as his own attorney during Tuesday’s hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court, has until June 27 to appeal and said he will do so.

Arizona: Scott Fistler, “Cesar Chavez”: Arizona congressional race devolves into war over Hispanic surnames. | Slate

On Aug. 26, Democratic voters in Arizona will choose a successor to 7th Congressional District Rep. Ed Pastor. It’s a safe, blue seat, covering the most liberal parts of Phoenix and Glendale. And it’s heavily Hispanic. That’s what led a Republican trickster named Scott Fistler to pay $319 to legally change his name, to “Cesar Chavez,” and attempt to get on the ballot. It was difficult to overstate the chintziness of the move. On his website (now offline), Fistler posted pictures of mobs of people marching in “Chavez” shirts—he took them from rallies for the late Venezeulan President Hugo Chavez. When I was in Phoenix last week, it was widely understood that Fistler would face challenges to his ballot petitions. In interviews, he’s responded to the challenges by saying “the Cesar Chavez train is smoking and it’s not going to stop until the election” and “my campaign is too legit to quit.” So we’re not talking about a serious person. Here’s where the story veers into pure derp. Ready? OK.

Arizona: Candidate Cesar Chavez accused of ‘confusing voters’ | KPHO

The grandson of Cesar Chavez is challenging the Arizona congressional candidate who has been using the farm labor leader’s name. Alejandro Chavez has filed a legal complaint in the Arizona Superior Court asking that Cesar Chavez, formerly known as Scott Fistler, be removed from the Democratic primary ballot. “This is an attempt to fool voters. This is nothing more than that, so that’s not right,” Alejandro Chavez said. Fistler previously ran for Phoenix City Council in 2013. He has since changed his name and party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.

Arizona: Two-time GOP loser changes party to Democrat, name to Cesar Chavez for new congressional bid | Arizona Capitol Times

Scott Fistler didn’t have much luck as a Republican candidate. He lost a 2012 write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, then lost a 2013 bid for a Phoenix city council seat now held by Laura Pastor, Ed’s daughter. All that could change, though, just like Fistler’s name and party registration. After petitioning a state superior court last November and paying $319, Fistler now legally shares the name of the celebrated labor movement icon, Cesar Chavez. Earlier this year, Chavez (formerly Fistler) became a Democrat, and – before Ed Pastor announced his retirement from Congress – filed to run in the heavily Hispanic 7th Congressional District. In his petition for a name change, Fistler wrote that he had “experienced many hardships because of my name.”

Arizona: Federal panel upholds Arizona legislative map | AZ Central

A divided federal court has upheld the legislative map drawn by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, removing any question about which districts candidates would run in this year. The 2-1 decision by a federal panel came 13 months after the trial, which was sought by a group of Republican voters, including the wife of Senate President Andy Biggs. The plaintiffs argued the map approved by the redistricting commission in 2011 violated equal protections as ensured by the U.S. Constitution because partisanship motivated the creation of some of the 30 districts. But the court assumed that partisanship was not a contributing factor as it weighed the legal arguments in the case, although it conceded that in one district in northern Pinal County, it contributed to a commission decision to shift the boundary lines.

Arizona: Court upholds legislative district lines | Arizona Daily Sun

In a 55-page opinion, the three-judge panel acknowledged that some of the lines drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission created districts that were larger or smaller in population than others. And they said the evidence shows that “partisanship played some role in the design of the map.” But the court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment to U.S. Constitution does not require that legislative districts have precisely equal population. Instead, the judge said, there can be “divergencies” that are necessary to achieve other goals. And in this case, they said, that the commission’s decision to manipulate the lines were “primarily a result of good-faith efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act” and its prohibitions against diluting minority voting strength, and not primarily to give Democrats a political leg up.

Arizona: Republicans Lose Legal Challenge to State Voting Map | Businessweek

Arizona Republican voters lost a challenge to an electoral districts map for the state assembly that they said favors Democrats by putting too many voters in districts with Republican majorities. A panel of federal judges voted 2-1 to reject the argument that the redrawn map by the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission violated the constitutional rights of Republican voters to equal protection and can’t be used in elections. “We conclude that the population deviations were primarily a result of good-faith efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and that even though partisanship played some role in the design of the map, the Fourteenth Amendment challenge fails,” according to the panel’s majority opinion.

Arizona: Brewer signs bill limiting authority of Citizens Clean Election Commission | Associated Press

A bill preventing the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission from investigating possible campaign contribution violations by candidates who don’t participate in the program has been signed by Gov. Jan Brewer. Senate Bill 1344 allows only the Secretary of State and state Attorney General to investigate. The Republican governor signed the bill Thursday. It passed the GOP-controlled Legislature this week mainly along party-line votes.

Arizona: Governor signs bill to repeal 2013 election reform law, kills referendum | Arizona Capitol Times

It’s official: Arizonans won’t get the last word on a series of controversial changes in state election law. Without comment, Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation Thursday to repeal the 2013 law. More to the point, by repealing the law the governor killed the referendum drive that had held up enactment until the voters made the final decision. Democratic lawmakers who opposed the 2013 law sought to keep the referendum on the ballot, saying voters deserved to have their say. Foes of the changes gathered more than 146,000 signatures on petitions to put the law on “hold” pending the election. But Democrats also were interested in attracting voters to the polls in November who objected to the changes forced through by the Republican-controlled Legislature. That included limiting who can take someone else’s early ballot to polling places, erecting some new procedural hurdles in the path of citizens proposing their own laws, and requiring minor parties to get far more signatures to get their candidates on the ballot.

Arizona: Brewer signs bill repealing elections overhaul that angered many and led to voter referendum | Associated Press

13 elections overhaul by Republicans that left voter-rights groups incensed and led to a petition drive that put the law on hold and referred it to voters. The bill repealed a sweeping elections overhaul that Republicans passed in the final hours of the 2013 legislative session, angering Democrats, some conservative Republicans and third-party candidates. They came together to collect more than 146,000 signatures to place the law on hold and put it on the November ballot. Repealing the law cancels the voter referendum. Brewer issued no statement regarding her action. Both houses of the legislature approved the bill along party lines earlier this month.