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Tag: election 2014

Are legislators to blame for long vote counts?

A few weeks back, Sen. President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, tweeted: “Just finished a great meeting with FL SOS… As expected a big difference is that we do not have a cutoff for early ballot dropoffs at polling like they do.” 

For those who do not know, Petersen was referencing the timeline for Arizona to count ballots. Like him, some elected leaders are fixated on the fact that Arizona doesn’t report election results on Election Day due to ballot dropoffs. They are even trying to use this conclusion to justify ending ballot dropoff by seeking to pass Senate Bill 1001, which could shorten the timeframe in which voters have to return early ballots, forcing more people to stand in line on Election Day. 

Alex Gulotta

This bill takes a path to the ballot box away from Arizona voters, in an attempt to make early voting less convenient and less accessible. Why? Because politics have shifted in Arizona. We now have highly competitive races and one party cannot simply force their pet policies on the people of Arizona without attempts such as these. 

Some legislators would have you believe that voters are responsible for delays and long lines. In reality, the single biggest factor for the delays in 2024 was the two-page ballot, caused by legislators who forced these bad policies on the ballot in an attempt to override Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Arizona ballot expanded to two pages, front and back, in many counties because more than 20 legislative referrals were put forward throughout the year, 11 of which made it onto the ballot. These referrals were an attempt to circumvent Hobbs, who often uses her veto power to protect Arizonan’s rights and freedoms. 

Legislators, who caused the delay, now seek to blame voters and, despite playing the blame game, nine of 15 counties certified earlier this year than in the last three presidential election years despite the recount law change, which slows certification.

It is important to note that Arizona has never delivered election results on Election Day, in part because our procedures favor having every voice be heard over the unreasonable demands of candidates and politicians for immediate results in razor-close races. In close races, it always takes time to call the winner, in every state. And now, Arizona is a place where we have close races. Arizona voters deserve to have their voting rights protected and expanded, not reduced and eliminated because candidates demand instant answers and legislators seek to go around the governor. 

Further, the fact that our legislators are looking to Florida for model policies and procedures should be terrifying for Arizona voters. In Florida, they created an election police force that their governor used in a targeted campaign to intimidate women who signed a petition for reproductive rights. They also made it illegal for community groups to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote. We could go on and on about the many harmful policies Florida’s Legislature and governor have enacted against Florida voters.

Florida should not be the blueprint for Arizona. We want local solutions for Arizona voters. We want our legislators to show restraint by not littering the ballot with every awful idea vetoed by the governor and be thoughtful and strategic when deciding election policy, not reactive and shortsighted. SB1001 doesn’t even come close to helping voters. 

Arizonans deserve leadership that strengthens our democracy, with bipartisan ideas that help more voters successfully cast their votes. Fortunately, there is a list of bipartisan proposals in a report of the Governor’s Bipartisan Elections Task Force issued at the end of last year. If legislative leaders are really inspired to make positive progress that could actually result in new, pro-voter policies that would be signed by the governor, it seems like that would be the right place to start the 2025 legislative session.

Alex Gulotta is State Director for All Voting is Local Action Arizona.

Jane Andersen: Standing up to protect democracy

After the rash of accusations of fraudulent elections in 2020 and 2022, Jane Andersen was appointed as the Arizona state director for Mormon Women for Ethical Government, a nonprofit founded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They advocate for protecting democracy in government by using faithful, nonpartisan, peacemaking, and proactive methods. In a recent interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Andersen discussed her role with the organization and its presence in Arizona.

The questions and answers have been edited lightly for style and clarity.

Tell me about your organization and your involvement?

There was a group of women who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who formed a Facebook group and basically decided “we don’t feel comfortable with this. This doesn’t land with our principles and values.” That Facebook group quickly grew into hundreds of women, and then thousands of women. MWEG has about 8,000 members across the United States, and Arizona – we’re just under about 300 but growing. I’ve been a part of it really since the beginning because that message resonated to me. That principle-based approach to politics and the vision is we’re women of faith trying to build a world that infuses a peaceful approach to politics and holding the government up to standards that are ethical. We’re training women to be civic actors. We’re nonpartisan. We have about 40% Republican, 34% Democrat and 26% independent. 

What are some of the things MWEG has done to accomplish its mission?

In terms of empowering women, the big thing is media literacy. They did a lot of campaigns about literacy and how we ingest communications that are coming our way. Also, doing a lot of campaigning to try to teach women to become principled voters. While we encourage women who are members of our organization to have a party affiliation, we definitely try to encourage people to put principle over a party affiliation. A lot of women sometimes are hesitant to use their voice so we have things like an op-ed lab that will help women craft and create communication that they can share. Over the summer, I think there was a lot of discouragement in the United States, so we did a campaign about how to bring hope into your spaces. A lot of our worries are swept up into national conversations, but the truth is that you can make a difference locally, no matter what’s happening nationally. 

Were you surprised with how President-elect Donald Trump did in the election?

I wasn’t super surprised. I thought money was really going to carry the day. Representing MWEG, I was a poll chaplain in south Phoenix on Election Day for seven hours. As I watched people’s reactions as they came to vote and who they were interacting with, it became pretty clear that that was the direction that it was going to go. I am surprised because the language and rhetoric he uses is difficult for me. For instance, having a child with special needs and past statements or ways that he’s described or interacted with people with disabilities is challenging to me. Our organization has big concerns about dehumanizing language just as it relates to immigrants and refugees, so I would think more people would have issues with that. One of our pillars that we focus on is protecting democracy, but that seems to have been too far in the past for the issue of January 6th to make a difference for some voters.

You’ve spoken before about how your faith has guided you politically. Can you elaborate?

Just to be clear, MWEG is in no way affiliated with the church and is a separate nonprofit, although we absolutely sustain the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the leaders. My opinion is not the official representation of the organization because it’s nonpartisan. For me, having studied the science of politics and government, I have a lot of respect for the way that was set up. The process of politics should involve compromise and should involve reaching across the aisle and listening. That very much does not align with the way that I see Trump operating. How that relates to my religious views is I very much believe that the United States is an important beacon on the hill in terms of standing up for democratic norms and values. If we’re not living those principles, where else are they going to be offered in the world? I also highly listen with intent to my ecclesiastical leaders. When they discuss any advice about entering the political sphere, they specifically name three values that are really important and that is integrity, compassion and service to others. That’s not something I see as much with Trump. The focus of the organization is not anti Trump. We have this wide spectrum of people within the organization. The one thing we do agree on is the process of government and I think that’s where we really have some work to do in Arizona. One of our church leaders said we need contested issues to moderate and unify. I don’t know that moderating and unifying is something that we’re going to see in Arizona anytime soon.

What can someone in your role do about the increased divisiveness between folks politically?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with how our church operates in terms of its congregations, but you don’t get to choose what time you go to church. We’re tasked with working together with people that live around us whether or not we agree with them politically and that has some grumpies along with it. People viewed members of our faith as being one party politically or one point of view. There’s a lot more diversity to that. We attend church with people that don’t agree with us and we learn the skills of feeling across lines of difference. Our women are particularly adept at doing that. What we bring to the table in Arizona is the ability to really lean into peacemaking. Peacekeeping is, “We agree to disagree; we’re not going to talk about anything,” and that’s not going to move the needle. Peacemaking is entering hard spaces and having difficult conversations where you know there’s conflict. Conflict isn’t always bad. It just means there’s an opportunity to listen and to learn. The women of our faith are particularly poised to take a role in that. We’re passionate about our communities. We’re passionate about our families, and we’re not afraid to speak up and share our opinions.

How do you feel about the general attitude of the last election? The negativity toward our election systems seems to not be as high.

And that’s for one reason. Because a certain candidate won. Because Republicans won and Republicans fostered the conversation about election denialism, it suddenly went away. I’m a registered Republican. I’m conservative by nature, but I never bought into the election denialism. I’m a huge supporter of Stephen Richer. He’s a personal friend. Bill Gates, Clint Hickman, Rusty Bowers, these are all people who stood up and stood their ground in terms of living with integrity. I still think there’s an issue with protecting democracy. If we have one candidate that was willing to say that the election was stolen and it filters down to a mistrust and distrust in our institutions, that’s pretty dangerous. We have so much dis- and malinformation. We have foreign actors and local actors who try to use that to their benefit.

Former Gov Jan Brewer recently wrote an op-ed published by The Arizona Republic that you, among some others, played “a vital role in building confidence in our electoral process” and are an “unsung hero.” What does that kind of praise mean to you?

It’s not always easy to stand up. I am a conservative Republican and there’s people that disagree with me. Good friends, people in my community – but I think it’s important that when we feel like something isn’t correct and we feel like we have to abide by our principles, we just stand up and do it. There are a lot of people who chose not to speak out at the time for fear that it might affect their career or if they’re politicians, their electability. Protecting our democratic institutions can’t simply come from one side from the left or one side from the right. We have to have people working together who may not agree on anything else, but agree that we want our institution to be trusted. 

What kind of impact are you looking to make at the state level?

Having this new position as a state director in Arizona, we are definitely going to be looking at specific things happening in the state Legislature, which would be protecting democracy, immigration, rooting out racism – things related to children and families. There will be more of a lobbying presence from MWEG to show up in a measured way. I’d love to work with other organizations like the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network and other groups that really want this bipartisan approach to governing. If might is right, then we’re just going to seesaw with whoever’s in power. I’d love to have legislators stand up and represent civic virtues and respond to the needs of our citizens. We have some really good people serving the Legislature. I’d love to call on their better nature and have them lead out in a way that reaches to the exhausted majority in the middle because that’s where most people are. 

 

Arizona county recorders won’t have to check citizenship of federal-only voters, court rules

A federal judge has slapped down a bid by an Arizona group to force county recorders to immediately investigate whether more than 40,000 registered voters are citizens.

In a 22-page order, Judge Krissa Lanham, a 2024 nominee of President Joe Biden,  said Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona lacks standing to challenge what the group claims is the failure of county officials to run citizenship checks on those who have signed up to vote only in federal elections. The judge said the group has failed to show any harm that would occur if she did not issue such an order.

Judge Krissa Lanham

Lanham said the same is true for Yvonne Cahill, a Republican Party member, who also joined in the lawsuit. The judge rejected any claim that Cahill, a naturalized citizen, would have her vote diluted if it turns out any of these federal-only voters are not citizens.

But the judge said there’s an even bigger problem: timeliness.

She said that the lawsuit is based, at least in part, on what challengers contend is the refusal of all 15 county recorders to follow a 2022 state law requiring them to send inquiries to various federal agencies to check the citizenship status of those federal-only voters.

“Plaintiffs waited until shortly before the election to file this lawsuit despite allegedly suffering irreparable harm since Arizona’s 2022 voter list maintenance laws went into effect,” Lanham wrote. What’s worse, she ruled, is they are asking her to order counties to do this work in the middle of an already ongoing election: The claim was filed just 24 days before early voting began this past Wednesday. That, said the judge, is not acceptable.

Merissa Hamilton of Strong Communities said the group’s attorneys are evaluating the ruling.

At the heart of the lawsuit is Arizona’s two-tiered voter registration system.

Those who provide documented proof of citizenship, required under a 2004 voter-approved law, are entitled to vote in all elections.

But the National Voter Registration Act says individuals without such proof can sign up to vote in federal elections, president and members of Congress, simply by signing an avowal, under penalty of perjury, that they are citizens and otherwise qualified to cast a ballot. At last count there were about 42,000 on that list.

Still, the law does make it illegal for noncitizens to vote.

The lawsuit alleges that county recorders are obliged under both state and federal statutes to perform “list maintenance” on their voter rolls. More to the point, the challengers contend the recorders are not complying with that law.

So they sued to get an order for the recorders to make what they claim are mandatory checks. And they also want the recorders to turn over a list of all those who registered without providing proof of citizenship, which is legal, to Attorney General Kris Mayes.

In filing suit, the challengers provided nothing to suggest that people who are not citizens actually are signing up to vote in Arizona, much less they are casting ballots.

Instead, it cited information about efforts in other states where election officials said they had purged foreign voters from the rolls, including situations some actually had voted. And, based on that, the challengers argued that if the recorders checked with federal databases they would discover some of the registrants, particularly those who signed up in recent months, are ineligible to vote.

Lanham was unimpressed.

“Plaintiffs do not provide any plausible factual allegations supporting this belief,” she wrote. “Moreover, their claims about the likely results of the investigation rely on a public opinion poll.”

That refers to a survey conducted for America First Legal in Arizona and five other battleground states conducted by Rasmussen Reports, which claims that more than 1% of those who said they were likely voters actually admitted to not being citizens.

Aaron Thacker, press aide to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, said there is little basis to believe that there are many people who have signed up to vote and signed a sworn statement under penalty of perjury who are not actually allowed to cast a ballot.

“The federal only ballots are made up of groups like Native Americans, college students and the elderly,” Thacker said, those who may not have easy access to the documents to prove citizenship.

Lanham said there’s another problem with the lawsuit.

That’s also the assessment of Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, who wrote to attorneys from  Strong Communities when they first threatened to sue her.

“Reality has proven that as a general rule, those who are not citizens do not register to vote.” Cazares-Kelly said. “In rare cases where someone who is not eligible actually attempts to register to vote, there are safeguards and laws to ensure that only eligible persons can vote.”

As originally filed, the challengers demanded that the recorders take immediate action to actually cancel the registrations of those whom they cannot get proof of citizenship from the registration rolls.

The only thing is, the judge noted, federal law pretty much precludes making such moves within 90 days of an election. So the lawsuit was altered to ask only that the counties send the citizenship inquiries to the federal agencies to start the investigation.

In doing that, however, Lanham said they undermined their claim that an immediate court order was needed to ensure that non-citizens did not dilute the votes of others: If the rolls can’t be altered now, the challengers can’t get the legal relief they seek.

But the judge said even a stripped-down approach requiring recorders to start making inquiries with federal databases of all these federal voters is legally problematic coming so close to an election.

She said that the same 90-day rule that precludes registration cancellation also is designed to prevent eleventh-hour administrative burdens for elected officials.

“Running statewide elections is extraordinarily complicated and difficult, poses significant logistical challenges, and requires enormous advance preparation by state and local officials,” Lanham wrote. And the judge said the challengers presented nothing of merit to show that those officials should be forced to divert resources earmarked to run an election to instead start inquiring to federal agencies about citizenship status.

 

Arizona Capitol Times 2024 General Election Guide

Vote 2024 with Citizens Clean Elections

Court keeps names of low-level election workers secret

Members of the public aren’t entitled to know the names of election workers who review the signatures on ballot envelopes, a judge ruled Thursday.

We The People, an organization that has aligned itself with Kari Lake, had sought the information from Maricopa County since January 2020. The group said it wanted to conduct further investigations given how quickly it said some signatures were verified.

In a five-page ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney, an appointee of former Gov. Doug Ducey, said that such information is generally considered a public record. But he said that presumption can be overridden if there is a legitimate public interest.

And in this case, he said, there was credible evidence of threats or harassment of workers. And that, said Blaney, trumps the public’s right to know.

Much of what is behind the request goes back to efforts by Lake to overturn her 2022 election loss in the governor’s race to Katie Hobbs.

One of her witnesses she called said about 274,000 signatures on early ballots were compared to samples in less than three seconds, with about 70,000 in two seconds or less. So far, though, courts have thrown out all of Lake’s challenges, even ruling the evidence of the time taken to be legally irrelevant.

Blaney said We The People, in its own action filed in April 2023, submitted evidence that some signature verifiers worked remotely from their homes during recent elections. And the group argued that the rapid pace, coupled with some confirming 100% of their signatures were valid, was highly improbable.

What getting their names would do, the group argued, would allow the workers to be interviewed about their training and procedures.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer agreed to provide the names of managers and those higher in the organization. But he refused to identify the lower-level employees, saying it could expose employees to harassment and threats.

“The public has a right to inspect public records,” Blaney wrote. He said anyone rejecting such a request has to demonstrate specifically how production would “violate rights of privacy or confidentiality or be detrimental to the bests interests of the state.”

That, said Blaney, is the case here, saying there was “credible, uncontested, sworn testimony” from two defense witnesses – Richer and Kristi Passarelli, former assistant director in the office – of “alarming threats that they personally received arising from their positions and activities in the Recorder’s Office.” And the judge noted that at the time of the hearing the U.S. Department of Justice had already charged three individuals for their threats to Richer and one had pleaded guilty.

Blaney said there was other evidence of security concerns, including a new black fence outside the facility, the addition of drones for surveillance, snipers on the roof, more security guards and the installation of bullet-proof glass.

“It is not reasonable to assume that the Recorder’s Office would take such extreme measures if the threats had not been as frequent, intense, and alarming as the defense alleged,” the judge wrote.

Then there was the concern that threats would have a chilling effect on Richer’s ability to recruit and retain employees.

“The Recorder’s Office could not accomplish its critical mission without sufficient temporary workers,” Blaney wrote. “These concerns outweigh the public’s right to know the identities of these lower level, non-managerial employees.”

He noted that Richer had offered to provide unique identification numbers for each of the workers. While that would not open them up to the interviews that We The People wanted, it would allow their data to be tracked.

A message to We The People was not immediately returned.

Richer lost his bid for reelection in the Republican primary to Rep. Justin Heap who now will face off in November against Democrat Tim Stringham.

 

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