Arizona: Minority senators raise alarm on elections-linked bills | AZCentral

A trio of racially diverse state senators on Monday condemned elections-related bills that they say discriminate against minorities and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor the legislation. Of particular concern to the senators are Senate Bill 1003, which would limit who can return a voter’s ballot, and SB 1261, which would drop people from the early voting list if they failed to mail in their ballots and instead voted at the polls. Both passed the Senate last week. “It would truly throw up obstacles to the early-vote process,” Senate Minority Leader Leah Landrum Taylor said of SB 1261. She is African-American. She was joined by Sens. Jack Jackson Jr., a Navajo, and Steve Gallardo, who is Latino. All three are Democrats, and all three said the bills would have a “devastating” impact on minority voting.

Arizona: Clean Elections consolidation bill advances | Arizona Daily Star

The Citizen’s Clean Election Commission would be consolidated with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office and take on added responsibilities for overseeing election law violations and lobbyist reporting under a bill approved by a Senate committee Tuesday. The proposal approved by the Appropriations Committee would allow the voter-created commission to still do its work independently but add some responsibilities and bring operational efficiencies, Secretary of State Ken Bennett said. The bill also would restore a so-called “tax checkoff” included in the law creating the commission that was eliminated by the Legislature last year. The bill would require any extra money the commission has to be turned over to Bennett’s office to help pay for replacing election equipment. The state needs millions of dollars to buy new voting equipment in the coming years.

Arizona: Cost of Provisional Ballots, Maricopa County, AZ | The Pew Charitable Trusts

This past November, Maricopa County, Arizona, issued the most provisional ballots in its history. In an in-depth report, the county elections department provides detailed information including not just why these ballots were issued and rejected, but also estimates of how much they cost. More than 120,000 provisional ballots were issued in the county during this past presidential election, of which nearly 100,000 were counted. The report identifies 18 different reasons for issuing provisional ballots, with half used because the voter requested an early ballot but did not return it and then showed up at the polls to vote in person.

Arizona: Republicans seek overhaul of early voting process | Mohave Daily News

Efforts by Arizona Republican lawmakers to overhaul the early voting process and fight election fraud have drawn criticism from Democrats and civic groups who fear the proposed changes would limit turnout among the state’s growing Hispanic electorate. At least seven bills in the Senate and House this year seek to adjust the early voting process. One measure would remove voters from the permanent early-voting list if they don’t vote by mail and fail to respond to a notice. Another measure would prohibit groups from collecting early ballots from voters for delivery to county election officials. Another measure seeks notarized signatures for early voters. Republican legislators argue that they must rework Arizona’s early voting process to combat unlawful votes and reduce confusion at the polls.

Arizona: More vote centers, more staff next time | YumaSun

Yuma County will open more voting centers in future elections as one way to avoid a repeat of the congestion and frustration seen here last November. Instead of 11 voting centers, there will be 15, and all voting centers may have more staffing. In addition, the county hopes to do on-site printer tests, set up in bigger facilities, keep more people on hand to troubleshoot technical difficulties and whittle the wait times from as high as four hours to no more than one. “We all know we had some pretty significant challenges we dealt with,” Yuma County Administrator Robert Pickels said Wednesday as he presented the board of supervisors with an after-action review of Election Day 2012, detailing problems and solutions.

Arizona: Lawmaker seeks pilot program to test online voting in Arizona | Cronkite News

The future of voting is online, and moving Arizona’s elections to the Internet would save money, deter voter fraud and increase efficiency, a state lawmaker says. “We will vote online some day,” said Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa. “So why not start to figure it out and get ahead of the curve and have Arizona lead the way on this?” Worsley introduced SB 1387 to create an online voting pilot program before the 2014 primary election. It would require at least one county and one city, town or other local jurisdiction to be involved and allow for votes to be cast via the Internet. … Bruce Schneier, the author of five books on cryptography, computer and network security and overall security, said he likes the idea of online voting but doesn’t think it can be done securely. “We have not, in the history of mankind, created a computer system without a security vulnerability,” he said. Worsley, founder of retail catalog giant SkyMall, insists the system he proposes can be reliable. “My business did over a million transactions a year,” he said. “I know that this can be done securely.” Worsley compared Internet voting to the millions of online banking or stock transactions that happen every day, but Schneier said there’s a fundamental difference. “The important difference is that voting, by definition, is anonymous,” he said. “If there’s electronic banking fraud, we look at what happens, we can roll it back and make everybody whole. We can’t do that with a voting system.”

Arizona: Bill would bar State secretary from serving on candidate committee | AZ Central

In the last two presidential elections, Arizona’s chief elections officer doubled as the head of one of the presidential nominees’ state campaign committees, raising eyebrows that the dual role could be a conflict of interest. A bill has been introduced in the state Senate that would bar that from happening again. Under the terms of Senate Bill 1335, the Arizona secretary of state could not serve as an officer of any candidate’s campaign committee if that candidate is running in an election the secretary of state would oversee. Sen. Robert Meza, D-Phoenix, the bill’s sponsor, said it’s a way to ensure that election oversight is not biased. It would bring the elections office in line with the same prohibitions that apply to the judiciary: judges can’t serve on a candidate’s committee, he said.

Arizona: Panel OKs altering recall election rules, election, recall, pearce | YumaSun

Hoping to avoid another ouster of one of their own, Republican legislators on Thursday voted to change the rules for recall elections. The measure approved by the House Judiciary Committee would require there be both a primary as well as a general election once a public official is recalled. Now, there is a single winner-take-all election. That distinction is important. That would mean only Republicans get to vote in the first step of the process in a recall of a GOP lawmaker. Whoever survives that partisan primary would face off against the Democrat and any others in the general election — assuming there is anyone else running in what might be a largely one-party district. Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, sponsor of HB 2282, made no secret of his interest: He was a supporter of Senate President Russell Pearce, the Mesa Republican who was ousted in a 2011 recall.

Arizona: Committee narrowly endorses bill on purging early voter lists | Cronkite News

Over objections from voting rights groups, a Senate committee endorsed a bill Tuesday aimed at helping counties manage permanent early voter lists to reduce the number of provisional ballots cast. SB 1261, authored by Rep. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, would allow counties to purge from the lists people who don’t vote in both the primary and general elections in a given year. Election officials would have to notify those voters by mail that their names will be removed if they don’t return a postcard saying that they wish to remain on the list. Reagan said that after last year’s elections officials in all 15 counties asked the Legislature to help them decrease the number of provisional ballots cast.

Arizona: Redistricting Commission immune from grilling for decisions | The Verde Independent

Members of the Independent Redistricting Commission do not need to answer certain questions from those who are suing them, a federal court has ruled. The judges accepted the argument by commission attorneys that its members are entitled to the same immunity from having to explain their decisions as state legislators. That allows them to rebuff inquiries from those who are suing them. But the judges hearing the case set for trial next month cautioned the commissioners they may want to think twice before asserting that privilege. They ruled any claim of privilege is an all-or-nothing prospect. The ruling — and the warning — could ultimately affect the outcome of the case.

Arizona: Legislature ponies up $500K for redistricting map panel | Arizona Daily Star

State lawmakers grudgingly approved $500,000 Thursday to keep the Independent Redistricting Commission in business – and help it fight the Legislature. The funding, given final approval by both the House and Senate, falls short of the $2.2 million the commission sought in supplemental funding for the balance of this budget year, which runs through June 30. But Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said the amount will provide enough to pay the commission’s lawyers to be ready for a trial set to begin in March in federal court challenging the maps the panel drew for legislative districts. He said the rest of the funds the commission wanted are unnecessary – at least for the time being.

Arizona: Lawmaker: Require notarized signatures for early voters | Cronkite News

Requiring Arizonans to have their signatures notarized to get on the permanent early ballot list or to receive early ballots would help prevent voter fraud, a state lawmaker contends. “When you go into the polls, you show your ID,” said Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix. “Every time you go into the polls, you show your ID. Well, if you’re going to vote by mail you’re not walking into the poll, so shouldn’t you have the same safeguards in place?” Seel said that the increase in people voting by mail prompted him to introduce HB 2350. “My bill is really almost a clean-up; that is, it stays consistent with that belief that anyone who votes truly should be authorized to vote,” he said.

Arizona: Lawmakers: Election day voter registration would boost participation | Cronkite News

Democratic lawmakers say allowing voters to register and cast ballots on the same day would increase election participation, but some county officials worry that it would further complicate the voting process. State Rep. Martin J. Quezada, D-Avondale, and state Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, have introduced legislation that would allow people to register and cast provisional ballots on election day. The bills also would rescind a state law cutting off voter registration 29 days before an election. “People express a lot of interest within those last two to three weeks before an election,” Quezada said. “They’re seeing more commercials, they’re seeing more TV, they’re seeing more mail.” He said that many people become interested too late and end up not being able to vote.

Arizona: Lawmakers crafting responses to election concerns | Cronkite News

The large number of provisional ballots cast in November has two lawmakers so far proposing ways to address the issue. Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, the House minority leader, said he is drafting legislation to form a committee to study election problems and recommend legislation. Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, chairwoman of a new Senate Elections Committee, said she is aiming to cut down on problems with permanent early voting lists that led to many provisional ballots being cast. Provisional ballots are given to voters at a polling places when there are questions about their identity or eligibility to vote. About 172,000 were cast in the general election, up from the 107,000 in 2008.

Arizona: Counties eye early-voting list overhaul | azcentral

Arizona’s largest counties plan to ask lawmakers for authority to purge some inactive voters from the permanent early-voting list in an effort to decrease the number of provisional ballots cast in future elections. Nearly half of Arizona voters who cast provisional ballots at the polls in the 2012 general election were asked to do so because they previously had signed up for permanent early voting, meaning ballots already had been sent to them in the mail, according to The Arizona Republic’s analysis of statewide election data. In Maricopa County, the state’s largest, more than 59,000 voters who signed up for early voting nonetheless showed up at the polls to cast ballots on Election Day, according to county elections data. Some county elections officials hope to see statutory changes that would allow them to evaluate whether certain voters on the permanent early-voting list should remain there.

Arizona: March Supreme Court hearing for voter-registration case | Arizona Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 will hear arguments surrounding Arizona’s 2004 voter-approved requirement that residents show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. In the case surrounding Proposition 200, state attorneys will ask the high court to overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said the state cannot require Arizona voters to provide documents when registering with the federal form, but it can require voters registering with the state form to do so. Among its provisions, the National Voter Registration Act creates a standard federal registration form that all states must accept. It requires applicants to sign a statement that they are citizens, but it does not require them to show any proof.

Arizona: Attorney General to pitch Supreme Court on voter proof of citizenship | East Valley Tribune

Attorney General Tom Horne will argue to the nation’s high court on March 18 that Arizona should be allowed to enforce a 2004 voter-approved law requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. The justices are reviewing a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said Arizona cannot refuse to register voters who do not provide proof of citizenship if they instead fill out a special registration form prepared by the federal Election Assistance Commission. That form requires only that the person avows, under oath and penalty of perjury, that he or she is eligible to vote. A 2004 voter-approved measure requires both proof of citizenship to register and identification to cast a ballot at the polls. Foes challenged both. The courts sided with the state on the ID at polling places requirement. While that remains a legal issue in some states, opponents of the Arizona law never appealed that decision and it will not be an issue when the U.S. Supreme Court looks at the law in March. But the appellate court had a different view on the citizenship-proof requirement.

Arizona: Ken Bennett’s Explanation of Provisional Ballot Issues Disputed by Organizer | Phoenix New Times

The cause of the provisional-ballot uproar has not been solved. At least, there doesn’t appear to be an agreement over the cause. Although Secretary of State Ken Bennett said one of the people involved in an effort to register 34,000 new Latino voters admitted that they were checking the permanent early-voting list box on registration forms without the voters’ knowledge, the details of that meeting are in dispute. Bennett’s spokesman Matt Roberts told New Times that this information — which Bennett presented to a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago — came from a meeting with a few people who were concerned about the provisional-ballot issue.

Arizona: State makes example out of few caught voting twice | USAToday

“Vote early and vote often” is a laugh line politicians often invoke as they make a pitch for people’s support. But it’s no laughing matter to a half-dozen former Arizonans, who have been prosecuted for voting twice in past elections. Thanks to a data-sharing agreement among 20 states, Arizona can cross-reference its voter data with other states and ferret out people who vote more than once in the same election cycle.

Arizona: Redistricting commission wants to be blocked from answering questions | Havasu News

Members of the Independent Redistricting Commission want a federal court to block them from being questioned about the legislative maps they drew. In legal papers filed in U.S. District Court, attorneys for the five commissioners said their actions are protected by “legislative privilege,” a legal concept that generally prevents lawmakers from being questioned or sued about how they reached a decision. And they want a three-judge panel hearing the case to preclude lawyers for the challengers, from being allowed to ask them about it in pretrial depositions. But Joe Kanefield, one of the commission’s attorneys, said this is just the first step to asking the federal judges to bar challengers from putting the commissioners on the stand at trial to get them to explain why they did what they did.

Arizona: Maricopa County election workers come under attack | ABC15

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said it had to endure a series of attacks during the two weeks it took workers to process votes after the election. “It does make me very angry. And I’ve never had to be angry after an election,” said Helen Purcell, Maricopa County Recorder. Purcell said she’s never seen anything like it after an election. “I had to lock down the facility, have everybody have to have a guard go to their cars, which I hate, but that’s what we had to do,” said Purcell.

Arizona: High minority precincts cast more provisional ballots | Tucson Sentinel

Maricopa County voters living in precincts with higher percentages of minorities had a greater chance of casting provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 election, a Cronkite News Service analysis found. The statistical analysis drew upon a precinct-level summary of provisional ballots from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and precinct-level demographic data prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau and provided by the county to a reporter. It found strong relationship between provisional ballots as a percentage of total ballots in a precinct and the precinct’s percentage of minorities. That is, the likelihood that voters would cast provisional ballots tended to increase with a precinct’s minority population.

Arizona: State turns down Pima County proposal to do ballot scans | Arizona Daily Star

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office has rejected Pima County’s proposal to do a pilot project creating digital scans of ballots. The measure had been a key element of the county’s efforts to improve election procedures by electronically auditing a certain percentage of ballots. In a memo dated Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of State Jim Drake said the recent election has “once again demonstrated that our election machines are incredibly accurate and reliable.” As a result, the office doesn’t want to pay for bolstered audit measures. Pima County, then, should expect more of the same.

Arizona: Bennett makes push for ‘voting centers’ | Arizona Daily Sun

Arizona voters may be able to cast their ballots in 2014 at any polling place anywhere in the county. Secretary of State Ken Bennett said Tuesday he wants lawmakers and county officials to consider “voting centers” that are capable of not just accepting but processing all ballots, regardless of the home voting precinct of the voter. He said changing patterns in how Arizonans decide to vote makes the current system not only overly cumbersome but unnecessarily slow. What it also could have been, he said, was embarrassing.

Arizona: Pima County Supervisors reject request for special hand ballot audit | Arizona Daily Star

The Pima County Board of Supervisors denied a request from its Election Integrity Commission to sort early ballots by precinct for a special hand audit for this election. The board spent about an hour Tuesday listening to commissioners and activists describe the need for an improved ballot-counting process. Pima County is the only county in the state that doesn’t sort ballots by precinct, said commissioner Michael Duniho. “Resisting improvement in vote count auditing has earned Pima County a reputation for suspect elections,” he told the board. A precinct-level hand count would confirm the accuracy of the machine count, Duniho said.

Arizona: Supreme Court relief sought on Voting Rights Act | Arizona Republic

Three days after the Nov. 6 election, when many Americans happily made voting a memory, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that some legal experts say could lead to the biggest shake-up in voting law in nearly a half-century. The court will weigh a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, a law that has changed little over 40 years and for decades has placed Arizona and eight other states under federal scrutiny for suspected discrimination. Supporters of the lawsuit, which involves an Alabama county, say their efforts could once again put every state and locality on equal legal footing and evaluate anew whether minorities are treated unfairly anywhere.

Arizona: Elections chief seeks overhaul | azfamily.com

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett is proposing a wholesale overhaul of the state’s vote-counting system in the wake of embarrassing delays counting more than 630,000 ballots statewide from the Nov. 6 general election. The delays kept voters from knowing the outcome of two of the state’s three major congressional races until at least a week after the polls closed, and the last wasn’t decided until Saturday. Bennett said if the presidential election had been in the balance, the state would have been the focus of nationwide derision. Bennett said in an interview with The Associated Press that by 2014, he hopes to completely revamp the way early ballots dropped off at polling places are counted; cut the number of provisional ballots issued by 90 percent; and ensure the vast majority of votes have been counted within hours of poll closings.

Arizona: Elections still not over as suspicion builds | Salon.com

The election may have ended almost two weeks ago, but in Arizona, it goes on. Perhaps it’s fitting for a state with its own time zone, but as of last night, there remained over 100,000 uncounted votes in the state’s two largest counties, leaving election officials unable to officially certify the results of a number of the state’s high profile races, including the Senate race, several House contests, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reelection bid. Friday was the deadline for counties to finish counting ballots, but the state blew past it yesterday when Maricopa, which contains Phoenix, and Pima County, which contains Tucson, said they needed more time. In most cases, the margins are the large enough by this point that candidates have declared victory or conceded defeat, even if the results aren’t official. And late Friday night, the Arizona Republic newspaper declared Democrat Ron Barber the winner in the highest profile race outstanding, the one to replace Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords. That contest had been too close to call for over 10 days, with fewer than 1,000 votes separating Barber from Republican Martha McSally, but the remaining outstanding ballots come from heavily Democratic areas so the paper was able to project Barber’s victory.

Arizona: Gun Store in Arizona: No Obama Voters Allowed | TPM

A gun shop in Arizona has a clear message to would-be customers who happened to vote for President Barack Obama: take your business elsewhere. The Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinetop, Ariz. took out an advertisement last week in the local newspaper, the White Mountain Independent, that spelled out the store’s new policy in explicit terms. “If you voted for Barack Obama your business is not welcome at Southwest Shooting Authority,” the ad reads. “You have proven that you are not responsible enough to own a firearm.” amendment

Arizona: Still Awaiting Some Election Results | NYTimes.com

The question of tipping the political scales in Arizona, like anyplace, is “purely mathematical,” Bruce Merrill said. More people voting for the other side matters only if enough of them vote to overcome the power of a loyal base of voters. Dr. Merrill, a senior research fellow at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, has made a successful living dissecting and analyzing voting patterns and trends in the state and beyond. Along the way, he has helped more than 100 candidates, almost all of them Republican, use numbers to tailor their messages and assess the viability of their campaigns. He is used to addressing large forums; last month, he spoke before the Arizona Medical Association. On Tuesday, he opened the doors to his home here, a spectacular 14,000-square-foot house on the edge of a golf course, to talk to about 60 people about the Nov. 6 elections.