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.
Maricopa County — home to the state capital, Phoenix — has reduced the number of its polling places from 403 in 2008 to 211 in 2012, to 60 in this year’s March primary. That equated to 21,000 voters per polling place this year in Maricopa, the state’s most populous and most densely populated count.
The Democratic National Committee called it “a reduction of voting sites of shocking magnitude,” in its April 15 lawsuit against Reagan, Purcell and Maricopa County. The DNC claimed that the reduced number of voting sites disenfranchised minority voters.
In the new lawsuit, Project Vote says the fees Arizona charges it and similar organizations are unjustified and limit “the ability of private citizens and associations to monitor the activities of state election officials.”
Full Article: CNS – Nonprofit Sues Arizona for Voting Records.