Arizona

Arizona: Maricopa County recorder says threats against election officials unlikely to stop,  | Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Republic

The state’s top elections official received a death threat last year. It wasn’t the first, and he fears it won’t be the last. On Tuesday, 50-year-old Missouri resident Walter Lee Hoornstra was indicted on suspicion of sending a threatening voicemail to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in May 2021. In it, Hoornstra warned Richer to stop speaking out against the Arizona Senate audit, or Richer would “never make it to (his) next little board meeting,” according to the indictment. Baseless claims that fraud occurred during the 2020 election sowed mistrust among voters, and election officials have borne the brunt of their vitriol. Across the country, election officials have resigned after dealing with relentless harassment. Richer estimates that he’s received thousands of hateful messages during his tenure since January 2021. So many that the threat from Hoornstra, at that point, wasn’t enough to cancel meetings or give him pause. “This would’ve been one of a deluge of voicemails, emails and social media messages at this time,” Richer said Thursday in an interview with The Arizona Republic. Allegations from the Arizona Senate audit inspired many of the messages, Richer said. Hoornstra’s voicemail came after the audit’s Twitter account falsely accused election officials of deleting electronic databases. In fact, contractors had simply been looking in the wrong place for the information, Richer said.

Full Article: Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer talks threats, voter vitriol

The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democracy Experiment | Robert Draper/The New York Times

R​​ose Sperry, a state committeewoman for Arizona’s G.O.P., answered immediately when I asked her to name the first Republican leader she admired. “I grew up during the time that Joe McCarthy was doing his talking,” Sperry, an energetic 81-year-old, said of the Wisconsin senator who in the 1950s infamously claimed Communists had infiltrated the federal government. “I was young, but I was listening. If he were here today, I would say, ‘Get him in there as president!’” Sperry is part of a grass-roots movement that has pushed her state’s party far to the right in less than a decade. She had driven 37 miles the morning of July 16, from her home in the Northern Arizona town Cottonwood to the outskirts of Prescott, to attend the monthly meeting of a local conservative group called the Lions of Liberty, who, according to the group’s website, “are determined to correct the course of our country, which has been hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats and fake news.” That dismal view of America today was echoed by nearly every other conservative voter and group I encountered across the state over the past year. Arizona has become a bellwether for the rest of the nation, and not just because of its new status as a swing state and the first of these to be called for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. It was and has continued to be the nexus of efforts by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to overturn the 2020 election results. At the same time, party figures from Trump down to Rose Sperry have sought to blacklist every Arizona G.O.P. official who maintained that the election was fairly won — from Gov. Doug Ducey to Rusty Bowers, speaker of the state’s House of Representatives. Such leaders have been condemned as RINOs, or Republicans in name only, today’s equivalent of the McCarthy era’s “fellow travelers.”

Full Article: The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democracy Experiment – The New York Times

Arizona county that saw election snafu to waive city costs | Bob Christie/Associated Press

An Arizona county where the Aug. 2 primary election was beset with multiple issues that led to the firing of its election director will waive the costs for running municipal elections in 11 cities and towns and plans to hire an outside election expert to review what went wrong. The five-member Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to waive more than $100,000 in costs it planned to bill the cities and towns for running the local elections. Seven cities and towns had local races left off early ballots that required the county to mail about 63,000 supplemental ballots. And County Attorney Kent Volkmer told the board that four other municipalities were affected by Election Day missteps that led to ballot shortages at about 20 of the county’s 95 polling places. “As the county manager clearly indicated, we fell below the expectations of our customers,” Volkmer told the board. “So I believe if this board is so inclined, I think there is good cause to waive for all of the various entities that we serve the municipal and town elections for.” “I think that’s a good idea due to the issues at hand,” Board Chair Jeffrey McClure. Last week, McClure had called the election issues “a major screwup” and Elections Director David Frisk was fired the next day. He had just been hired in March.

Full Article: Arizona county that saw election snafu to waive city costs | AP News

Arizona Attorney General Debunks Trump Supporters’ Election Fraud Claims | Maggie Astor/The New York Times

Accusations that hundreds of ballots were cast in Arizona in 2020 in the name of dead voters are unfounded, the state’s Republican attorney general said on Monday in a sharply worded letter to the president of the Arizona Senate, who has advanced false claims of voter fraud. The attorney general, Mark Brnovich, wrote in his letter to Senator Karen Fann that his office’s Election Integrity Unit had spent “hundreds of hours” investigating 282 allegations submitted by Ms. Fann, as well as more than 6,000 allegations from four other reports. Some of them “were so absurd,” he wrote, that “the names and birth dates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.” The claims in Ms. Fann’s complaint stemmed from a heavily criticized audit of the 2020 election that the company Cyber Ninjas conducted last year in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa. That audit found no evidence for former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that the election had been stolen from him; in fact, it counted slightly fewer votes for Mr. Trump and more for Joseph R. Biden Jr. than in the official tally. A subsequent report from election experts accused Cyber Ninjas of making up its numbers altogether. Nonetheless, Ms. Fann sent the accusations of dead voters to Mr. Brnovich’s office in a September 2021 complaint. “Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” Mr. Brnovich wrote in his letter. His office concluded, he wrote, that “only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election.”

Full Article: Arizona Attorney General Debunks Trump Supporters’ Election Fraud Claims – The New York Times

Advocates for Arizona’s ‘fake electors’ plan had legal doubts, new report finds | Ronald J. Hansen/Arizona Republic

Some of those involved in submitting presidential electors for President Donald Trump in Arizona after he had lost the state in 2020 knew their plan was legally dubious and want to keep its low public profile as long as possible, according to a report published Tuesday. Citing previously undisclosed emails, the New York Times painted the picture of an effort in key swing states, including Arizona, the closest contest in the country, that was both desperate and probably wouldn’t pass legal scrutiny. Their plan was to submit papers to Congress suggesting Trump won the states, even though certified results showed then-President-elect Joe Biden had won them. Trump’s allies hoped the dual slates of electors would serve as a justification for slowing or reversing the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Biden’s victory. After Vice President Mike Pence refused to consider the “fake electors,” a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, halting the process for hours. Long before then, those pushing the long shot plan knew they stood on shaky ground, the Times reported. People familiar with the plan at the time have told The Arizona Republic that while the strategy was legally questionable, they didn’t view their activity as criminally wrong.

Source: Report shows Arizona electors knew of ‘fake election’ legal doubts

Arizona: Sharpie misinformation bleeds into primary | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

Election officials in Arizona’s largest county won’t soon forget #SharpieGate — the social media uproar that emerged after the 2020 election based on the false claim that Sharpie pens provided at the polls would ruin ballots before they were counted. Now, as Maricopa County gears up for Arizona’s primary election on Tuesday, it’s facing a repeat of the same false theories in response to an announcement by election officials that they were switching to Pentel brand felt-tip pens on Election Day. “DO NOT use the felt tip pen they will try to give you,” one Twitter user wrote Thursday. “#SharpieGate all over again in AZ. Bring your ball-point pens,” wrote another, in a tweet that called election officials “treasonists” and accused them of trying to “rig the primaries.” The county provides felt-tip pens to voters at the polls on Election Day because the pens have quick-drying ink that won’t smudge the ballots or produce wet splotches that jam up onsite tabulators. That can require the machines to be cleaned, causing long lines at the polls. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Twitter urged those voting in Tuesday’s primary to “PLEASE PLEASE” use the provided pens to prevent machine problems and keep voting running smoothly.

Full Article: Pen misinformation bleeds into Arizona primary | AP News

Arizona secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem doesn’t trust elections. Now he wants to run them. | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

Mark Finchem tells the story of a late-night search for three men suspected of pulling off a string of robberies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, three decades ago. An officer with the local police department at the time, Finchem stopped a suspicious vehicle but didn’t have the evidence needed to make an arrest. As turned back toward his car, he noticed the stopped car’s trunk was slightly ajar and got a bad feeling. He later learned a man was in there with a sawed-off shotgun. “I knew when I got out of my car something was wrong,” Finchem said. “I didn’t know what.” That’s how he views the 2020 presidential election, the event that has catapulted him to national notoriety and is propelling his bid as Arizona’s next secretary of state. Something was wrong, he felt. “People see things they know are just wrong, but they don’t know what,” he said in an interview late last year. He says he’s here to sort it out for them. Finchem, 65, is finishing his fourth term as a Republican state representative from Oro Valley. He’s a prominent proponent of false claims that Donald Trump was cheated out of the presidency. While court hearings, audits, congressional scrutiny and even a homegrown ballot review by the state Senate have failed to produce evidence of such fraud, Finchem maintains he has the proof. Thus far, he hasn’t convinced political leaders or the courts.

Full Article: Arizona secretary of state primary 2022 candidate: Mark Finchem

Arizona: Top election officials in Yavapai County leave amid threats | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Full Article: Top election officials in Arizona county leave amid threats – The Washington Post

Arizona: GOP poll watcher training casts unfounded suspicion on Arizona elections | Jen Fifield/AZ Mirror

The Republican National Committee is telling potential Arizona polling place observers that there are “festering problems” in how elections are run, such as security issues with vote-counting machines and problems with voter rolls, as it trains them for the state’s upcoming primary election. The RNC training delivers the message that the “2020 election had serious problems,” worrying experienced former election officials and lawyers who have trained observers in the past and who say the point of training should be simply to encourage observers to watch for violations of law at the polls without disturbing the peace. Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, who as an attorney led Republican observer training in the 2000s, said the messaging concerns him because his focus was always on providing a straightforward picture of what was legal and what was not at the polls. “It’s not about kind of ginning people up, which is what that sounds like,” Gates said. “That’s the narrative, though.” Votebeat watched an RNC Zoom training at the invitation of an attendee, and separately received information about an in-person training from an attendee, after an RNC spokesperson said that reporters were not allowed to attend.

Full Article: GOP poll watcher training casts unfounded suspicion on Arizona elections

Arizona lawmaker Rusty Bowers details the pressure put on him by Trump and Giuliani | Ximena Bustillo/ NPR

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, told the committee during today’s hearing about the pressure put on him by former President Donald Trump and his allies, including Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Bowers testified that Giuliani told him of allegations of voter fraud committed by undocumented immigrants or dead people who were listed as having voted. Bowers said he and other GOP legislators pushed for explanations into the theories and for Giuliani to provide sufficient evidence to justify recalling the state’s presidential electors. “In my recollection,” Bowers said of Giuliani, “he said, We have lots of theories we just don’t have the evidence.'” Bowers said Giuliani pressured him to call the Arizona legislature back into session — a unilateral move Bowers said he cannot do — to recall the electors that would be going to President Biden after Biden beat Trump in the state. “It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired,” he said, growing visibly emotional. “I would not do it.” The former president asked him to hold a hearing to investigate allegations of fraud in Arizona, he said, but added he didn’t think the evidence “merited a hearing.”

Full Article: Lawmaker Rusty Bowers details the pressure put on him by Trump and Giuliani : NPR

Arizona: Lawsuit vs. voting machines factually flawed, Maricopa County claims | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

Full Article: Lawsuit vs. voting machines factually flawed, Maricopa County claims | Arizona and Regional News | tucson.com

Arizona early voting upheld by judge, rejecting GOP attempt to end it | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

There’s nothing unconstitutional about Arizona’s early voting law, a Mohave County judge determined Monday. The ruling, knocking down a lawsuit from the Republican Party of Arizona, is a win for the state’s election officials and Arizona voters who use the early-voting system, a vast majority of the electorate. And it’s another setback for the state party, which has argued the practice violates the Arizona Constitution’s requirement for ballot secrecy. Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen boiled down the essence of the case in his four-page ruling to this: “Is the Arizona Legislature prohibited by the Arizona Constitution from enacting voting laws that include no-excuse mail-in voting? The answer is no.” He noted that the no-excuses mail-in voting that lawmakers approved in 1991 provides protections for secrecy. For example, the ballot return envelopes are designed in a way to ensure the voter’s choices are not visible. In addition, the envelopes are “tamper evident” so election workers can notice if someone has tried to open the ballot envelope. Jantzen denied the Republican Party’s case as well as its request for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked almost all early voting for the Nov. 8 general election. That would have required millions of Arizona voters to obtain their ballot at the polls and cast it there.

Full Article: Arizona early voting upheld by judge, rejecting GOP attempt to end it

Arizona Governor Ducey vetoes ‘vague’ voter cancellation bill | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

Full Article: Gov. Ducey vetoes ‘vague’ voter cancellation bill | Government-and-politics | tucson.com

As Arizona Republicans revive lawsuit to stop early voting, Attorney General won’t defend the state | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

The Republican Party has restarted its lawsuit to end early voting in Arizona, but the state won’t have a key official defending the practice: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has dropped out of the case. The decision not to defend the early voting system came from a mutual agreement between the Republican Party of Arizona, which filed the complaint, and the Attorney General’s Office, court records show. It is not clear who initiated the move to leave the lawsuit. “I’ll let the AG’s office comment on that,” said attorney Alexander Kolodin, who is representing the state party. Brnovich’s office did not reply to a query about why he agreed to the move. But in a filing to the Mohave County Superior Court, state Solicitor General Brunn W. Roysden III stated the Attorney General’s Office agrees to be bound by the outcome of the lawsuit, including any appeals. The state GOP moved their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of early voting to Mohave County after the state Supreme Court last month declined to take up the matter, saying it needed to start in a lower court. A hearing is scheduled for June 3.

Full Article: Attorney General Mark Brnovich won’t defend early voting in GOP case

Arizona would likely see recounts after every election under popular bill | Jen Fifield/AZ Mirror

Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, would likely be required to recount all ballots cast in every election moving forward if a proposed change to state law passes. The bill, awaiting a final vote as early as today in the Arizona Legislature after garnering bipartisan support, would vastly widen the margin of votes between candidates that triggers an automatic recount in primary and general elections, for almost every type of race. The change would prompt more frequent recounts in large and small counties alike. In the 2020 general election, it would have triggered two statewide recounts and two countywide recounts in Maricopa County, including the presidential race which Joe Biden won narrowly in the state. The stated goal is to build voter confidence in election outcomes in a battleground state where margins are often tight and recounts are currently rarely allowed. State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, who introduced Senate Bill 1008, says it would still only require recounts on races that are very close. “Here is an opportunity to help reinforce the process,” Ugenti-Rita said. “To give the voters confidence that, when races are razor tight, we make sure they were counted accurately.”

Full Article: Arizona would likely see recounts after every election under popular bill

Arizona justices to decide if public has right to see Cyber Ninja election audit records | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

The Arizona Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over whether the state Senate has the authority to conceal records from an audit of the 2020 presidential election. American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed suit in 2021 after Arizona Republicans contracted the private firm Cyber Ninjas to audit the results of the 2020 election. The now-defunct Cyber Ninjas found President Joe Biden was lawfully elected but identified what it considered to be 53,304 questionable ballots. Maricopa County investigated the authenticity of those ballots and determined that only 37 may have been illegally cast. The case landed before the Arizona Supreme Court after the Arizona Court of Appeals and a trial judge rejected the state Senate’s assertion that legislative privilege granted some documents protection against disclosure. The state’s high court has barred the court-ordered release of the records while it considers the case. Andy Gaona of Coppersmith Brockelman, representing American Oversight before the court Tuesday, argued that legislative privilege is not a political tool to hide information. “[Legislative] privilege is not intended to benefit individual legislators; it is not intended to protect them from embarrassment,” Gaona said. “It is not intended to allow them to shield communications as they see fit. What it’s intended to do is to benefit the public by ensuring that their elected representatives — and this is what Appeals says — are not held either criminally or civilly liable for their actions.”

Full Article: Arizona justices to decide if public has right to see Cyber Ninja election audit records | Courthouse News Service

Arizona: Maricopa County officials want record ‘corrected’ after election fraud report by Attorney General | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Wednesday to correct the record after publishing controversial interim findings on the integrity of the 2020 election. Brnovich’s interim findings, sent to the state Senate on April 6, cited concerns over signature verification, chain-of-custody procedures and the use of private money in the election. The bipartisan board’s letter to Brnovich comes after an executive session Wednesday during which the board and the county recorder unanimously decided to refute his findings with correspondence. “It’s disappointing that we have to write this in response to an office that saw fit to take no action for all of 2021 until the politics changed,” said Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, at the executive meeting Wednesday. “I have been so disappointed on so many levels with Republican electeds, Republican colleagues, Republican friends.” Richer told the board Brnovich’s report caused his staff trouble and threats. “But I’ve never been more disappointed than when somebody omits information, misstates information and besmirches the good name of the hard-working people in my office and reopens vitriol, hate and threats that they shouldn’t have to deal with,” Richer said. Later, the board questioned whether Brnovich released his report after pressure from his party and from former President Donald Trump.

Full Article: County officials want record ‘corrected’ after election fraud report by Arizona AG | Courthouse News Service

Arizona GOP candidates sue to block use of voting machines in upcoming midterms | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

Republican candidates for Arizona governor and secretary of state sued state and county officials to bar the use of electronic voting machines ahead of the midterm election in November. In the federal complaint filed Friday and made available Monday, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem claim an injunction to stop the use of voting machines is necessary since the “voting system does not reliably provide trustworthy and verifiable election results.” Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Lake and Finchem in their respective races. Lake and Finchem want a federal judge to prohibit the use of electronic voting machines in the state in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. They claim voting on paper ballots and hand-counting those votes is the only efficient and secure method for proceeding. The candidates claim there is a history of voting machine failure in Arizona and abroad. Additionally, they contend state officials neglected security procedures and claim Dominion Voting Systems, a voting software company, lied and ignored a state legislative subpoena inquiring about the data relating to the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. Dominion is not named as a defendant in the complaint. Lake announced the lawsuit at one of her political rallies in Morristown, Arizona, in March alongside the founder and CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell. Lindell teased a class-action suit at the rally, with over 300 plaintiffs supposedly committed.

Full Article: Arizona GOP candidates sue to block use of voting machines in upcoming midterms | Courthouse News Service

Arizona lawsuit seeks to ban ballot-counting machines | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

Full Article: Lawsuit seeks to ban ballot-counting machines in Arizona | Govt-and-politics | tucson.com

Arizona: How a Trump ally got his unfounded voting-machine audit push in front of federal cyber agency | Betsy Woodruff Swan, Lee Hudson and Zach Montellaro/Politico

Full Article: How a Trump ally got his unfounded voting-machine audit push in front of federal cyber agency – POLITICO

Arizona Attorney General report finds no evidence of mass fraud in Maricopa County 2020 election results | Vaughn Hillyard and Zoë Richards/NBC

A report issued Wednesday by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich found no evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities associated with the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County while raising concerns about some voting procedures. The interim report, six months into an investigation, was detailed in a 12-page letter to Senate President Karen Fann. Brnovich, a Republican, said his office “has left no stone unturned in the aftermath of the 2020 election.” Former President Donald Trump is pursuing a persistent pressure campaign to uncover any illegal activity that would support his false claims that he defeated President Joe Biden in Arizona 17 months ago. Trump lost Arizona by less than 10,500 votes, and a GOP-commissioned review in Maricopa County confirmed Biden’s victory.

Full Article: Arizona AG report finds no evidence of mass fraud in Maricopa County 2020 election results

Editorial: Those who want accuracy and integrity rage FOR the (vote-counting) machine, not against it. | EJ Montini/Arizona Republic

If there were only a dozen or so of us living a pioneer-like existence in Arizona, or perhaps a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand, a law that allows only for in-person voting, bans electronics and mandates a hand count of ballots that must be completed within 24 hours might make sense. Might. But there are millions of us, which makes the notion of requiring such a thing … insane. So, naturally, that is exactly what some Republicans in the Arizona Legislature are proposing, a return to the Stone Age of democracy, where there is no machine count, no early voting, no mail-in ballots, no common sense. When the bill to do this was revived in the Senate recently, Republican J.D. Mesnard recognized one of the many obvious problems with it, pointing out that in Maricopa County alone there are about 2.5 million votes cast, each of which has 70 to 80 races printed on it. In other words, that’s about 150 million votes to count.

Full Article: Vote counting machines exist for good reason. Why take them away?

Arizona Senate panel votes to require all ballots be hand counted | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

Full Article: Arizona Senate panel votes to require all ballots be hand counted | Govt-and-politics | tucson.com

Arizona: Maricopa County’s vote-counting machines were not connected to internet, independent review finds | Mary Jo Pitzl and Ronald J. Hansen/Arizona Republic

Maricopa County’s vote-counting machines were not connected to the internet during the 2020 election, an independent review has found, further undercutting claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the results were “rigged.” A trio of technology experts overseen by an impartial special master found no evidence of an internet connection, according to results of the review released Wednesday. That echoes the county’s long-standing position as well as the findings of independent audits the county conducted a year ago. It also dispels unproven theories from election deniers that the tabulation machines were hooked up to the internet and therefore susceptible to hacking to throw the election to Joe Biden. Biden won Maricopa County by 45,109 votes, according to the official results. In a statement, Bill Gates, a Republican who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said “the unanimous conclusions of this expert panel should be a final stake in the heart of the Senate’s so-called ‘audit.’ “Whenever impartial, independent and competent people have examined the county’s election practices, they have found no reason to doubt the integrity of those practices. The Board of Supervisors remains committed to free and fair elections that conform to federal and state laws.”

Full Article: Arizona audit: County election machines weren’t connected to internet

Arizona state senators block a dozen GOP-sponsored election reform bills | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

The Arizona Senate blocked a sweeping slate of GOP-sponsored election reform bills Monday that many state Republicans claimed would have addressed concerns of election integrity, following the state’s audit of the 2020 presidential election. Twelve election reform bills failed to pass the Republican-controlled Senate due to nay votes from two Republicans. The surprising result came after sponsors and committees spent weeks amending and prepping the bills for their final Senate read. The GOP-dissenters of the bills were state Senators Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Republican from Scottsdale, and Paul Boyer, a Republican from Glendale. Both have pushed back against claims from many of their colleagues that Joe’s Biden 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, and they have received harsh criticism from the Arizona GOP as a result. “I do have some major concerns with this bill and I have a major concern about what we’re doing today,” Ugenti-Rita said, explaining her vote against Senate Bill 1570. The bill would have prevented some voting equipment from being connected to the internet, in a bid to safeguard against hacking. “I have never seen this amount of bills for one section of law come up over the course of a few days and just be allowed to die. I think that’s poor leadership. I’ve been here for 11 years. That is not how we do things,” Ugenti-Rita said. “I don’t think it’s fair to the sponsors. I don’t think it’s fair to the other members. And honestly, I think that there’s an agenda behind it and I find it inappropriate.”

Full Article: Arizona state senators block a dozen GOP-sponsored election reform bills | Courthouse News Service

Arizona Republicans continue pushing voting restrictions, risking backfire | Kirk Ziegler/NPR

By last count at the Arizona State Capitol, close to a hundred voting bills have been introduced, part of a nationwide push by far-right Republican controlled legislatures to pass restrictive voting laws. The swing state of Arizona is front and center — home to 10% of all the proposed legislation — despite two audits showing no problems with the 2020 Presidential Election. One of those, done by the Florida firm, Cyber Ninjas, actually handed more votes to President Biden, who narrowly won Arizona. Critics of the so-called voter reform push see it as part of a slide toward authoritarianism. But State Rep. John Fillmore, an architect of some of the bills currently pending in Arizona, disputes claims that Republicans want to suppress votes. “I want every American to have the opportunity to vote,” Fillmore said one sunny morning on the plaza in front of the Arizona House of Representatives. Fillmore represents one of Arizona’s most conservative districts around Apache Junction, in the suburban desert east of Phoenix. The businessman often seen in a bolo tie says many of the proposed bills, which range from measures to require all ballots be hand counted to restrictions on ballot drop off boxes, are a response to concerns by his constituents.

Full Article: Arizona Republicans continue pushing voting restrictions, risking backfire : NPR

Just what Arizona needs: an imaginary ballot box to combat imaginary election fraud | Laurie Roberts/Arizona Republic

Comes now the latest in the Republicans’ unrelenting and at times unhinged assault against Arizona’s elections. Today’s victim: Arizona’s wildly popular early voting system, a decades-old program that was lauded as a national model until Donald Trump lost an election and Republican leaders lost their minds. Senate Bill 1571 would bar voters who receive early ballots from dropping them in the mail. Instead, we’d have to take our ballots to a “smart” drop box. One that doesn’t exist. This plan comes courtesy of Sen. Kelly Townsend, an Apache Junction Republican who is hoping to convince Tucson that she should represent them in Congress next year. This bill is, at least, a step up from her earlier efforts to outright ignore the results of an election. This time, she’s just trying to make it harder for people to vote in the first place. All this, in the name of eliminating all that supposed fraud that not even the Senate’s own ninja auditors could find after an exhaustive examination of Arizona’s 2020 election.

Full Article: An imaginary ballot box to fight imaginary fraud? Genius plan!

Arizona: GOP-led Senate panel votes to hand-count all ballots | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Republican state senators on Monday advanced legislation that would require every ballot cast in Arizona’s elections to be counted by hand, with GOP proponents who embraced former President Donald Trump’s false narrative of massive voter fraud calling it a needed reform. The proposal from Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, was approved by the Senate Government Committee Monday afternoon on a 4-3 vote with no Democratic support. The measure is one of scores of election bills making their way through the Legislature this year. Rogers said her proposal for an all-hand count tabulation was prompted by comments made by Doug Logan, the CEO of the firm the Arizona Senate hired to recount 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots last spring, Cyber Ninjas. “This does away with the machines,” Rogers said. “When I interviewed cyber forensic expert Doug Logan … he told me that the biggest finding he has from the audit is that the more technology we use, the more chance there is to cheat.” Logan’s hand-counting operation used hundreds of people, lasted weeks and only recounted the presidential and U.S. Senate races. He confirmed that President Joe Biden won, as the original machine count had found. Jen Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, said the proposal was simply unworkable. “As we know, we cannot get enough people in many of our counties to conduct the limited hand count that happens post-election,” Marson told the panel. “I struggle to believe that we would have enough people to hand count the entire election and all of the different ballot styles associated with that election in any kind of timely fashion.”

Full Article: GOP-led Arizona Senate panel votes to hand-count all ballots | Hosted

Arizona Senate Republicans push bills to combat ‘voter fraud’ | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

An Arizona Senate committee voted Thursday to advance election reform bills that would prohibit the use of drop boxes and add a precinct tallying requirement prior to county tallying. Senator Wendy Rogers, a Republican from Flagstaff, presented Senate Bills 1058 and 1343 to the Senate Government Committee. “I’m Senator Rogers, I’m the sponsor of this bill,” Rogers said of Senate Bill 1058. “This is basically no more drop boxes. Over.” The former Air Force pilot’s comments were met with applause and laughter from the majority-conservative gallery. The chairwoman reminded the crowd that they must observe decorum in the reading or be excused from the proceedings. The committee took comments from the public, with few dissenters of the bills. One dissenter felt the bills could sway voter engagement. “I’m concerned about this and the other bills regulating voting because new restrictions on voting will have the effect of disenfranchising voters who may feel they can’t meet the challenges, and for no valid reason,” said Judith Simon, who has worked as a teacher for 33 years. “I’m thinking of voters in rural and tribal areas, [and] disabled and elderly voters, who may not read all the particular legal details and just hear, ‘Oh, we can’t use drop boxes at all anymore.’”

Full Article: Arizona Senate Republicans push bills to combat ‘voter fraud’ | Courthouse News Service

Arizona bill would allow legislature to overturn election results | Reid Wilson/The Hill

Full Article: Arizona bill would allow legislature to overturn election results | TheHill