By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media services
PHOENIX – Former Navajo County’s Democratic Party leader leads efforts to convince voters to overturn three changes to electoral laws approved by the Republican-controlled legislature this year following Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump were.
Eric Kramer’s actions include:
– Changes to a “permanent pre-election list” that will prevent the primary votes from coming if people don’t use them in two previous election cycles, even if they instead chose to go straight to the polling stations;
– Prohibition of state and local electoral officials from receiving external grants for voter registration and electoral administration even if they believe they are not properly funded;
– Requiring that new ballots be encoded with special anti-fraud measures and unique numbers and codes, a measure that also deprives Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of her power to defend electoral challenges.
If he receives 118,823 valid signatures for one of the three new laws by September 28, each of them will go into effect the next day, as currently planned. Instead, the measures would be put on hold until voters have a chance in November 2022 to decide whether they like – and want to ratify – the acts of the legislature or whether to oppose them.
Kramer acknowledged that he doesn’t have the same extensive network of educators and political activists making separate efforts to point changes to tax laws towards the 2022 vote. However, Kramer told Capitol Media Services that he believes there are enough active Democrats out there who are upset with legislature’s efforts to undermine voting rights in order to get the required signatures on time.
The common thread running through all of the measures Kramer hopes to point voters on is that some enemies see them as a way to give Republicans an edge in future elections, especially after Biden Trump last year in Arizona with just 10,457 Voices had defeated.
It starts with this permanent list for early voting. Once someone logs in, he or she remains on the list as long as that person is registered to vote.
But Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, said those lists are now jammed with people who don’t seem interested in using those early ballot papers. She also said that sending ballots early to people who might not want them creates the possibility of them being used fraudulently by someone else.
Their new law says that someone who doesn’t use early voting at all in two consecutive election cycles – that is, a primary, a general assembly and a primary and a general assembly two years later – will receive a notification asking if they are still interested . If they don’t answer, they will be removed from the list.
“Nobody replies to these government mailings,” said Kramer. “You are not a great protection.”
Ugenti-Rita said those removed from the list can reapply. And she noted that they have their right to go to a polling station.
During testimony on the measure, Democrats said it was designed to harm low-impact voters who only come out when there is an interest run.
That happened in 2020. The enemies estimated that if the law had been in place, in 2020 it would have denied early voting to more than 100,000 people who chose not to use it in 2016 and 2018.
Politics was at play when lawmakers passed legislation preventing any state, city, town, county, school district, or other public entity that conducts or administers elections from using private funds to prepare, conduct or conduct an election to receive or spend, including registered voters.
Exhibit # 1 for Republicans was more than $ 6 million that nine Arizona counties received from the Center for Tech and Civil Life last year. And CTCL reported that $ 400 million of what it spent nationally came from Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
Supporters argued that it allows those with money to encourage greater turnout in communities where their preferred candidate or party is more likely to win.
But Jennifer Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, pointed out that four of the nine counties have Republican majorities, four more Democrats, and voter registration is almost evenly distributed in Maricopa County. And in either case, she said, the grants, including the use of the money, were approved by the district overseers.
In an email, Michael Sample, the Navajo County’s recorder, said the money his county received was used to provide voting material in languages other than English. And Sample said it allowed the county to buy two mobile pollers to both register and serve as early polling stations in rural areas where polling centers were closed due to COVID-19.
Kramer also mocked GOP lawmakers for saying this type of external funding was tainted despite the fact that the Arizona Senate accepted an undetermined amount of money from previously undisclosed sources to conduct a 2020 election review.
The final referendum consists of two sections of the same bill.
First, precautions are being taken by Senator Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, to allow safer voting with things like holograms and inks that change color when heated.
But Kramer is concerned about other things in the novella, including “stealth numbering in ultraviolet, infrared, and taggant inks,” the latter of which is only detectable with specialized equipment.
The same legislation also requires unique barcodes or QR codes – those square codes that appear on some items to provide additional information – that are only intended to be accessible to the voter and that track the ballot as it is processed.
“That would actually endanger the privacy of the ballot papers,” said Kramer. “These people walking around doing exams and so on could find out who voted whom.”
But Borrelli said the only people who would know who is getting what numbers are the voters themselves, who allow them to go to a website and find out if their ballots have been counted. And he said unique numbers, generated randomly, ensure that the same ballot is not scanned and counted more than once, “as has been claimed in other states.”
Likewise, there is also a provision that gives the Attorney General “sole authority” to determine the manner in which the state defends claims against electoral laws, rather than the Secretary of State, who is the chief election officer.
However, Kramer argued that this was purely policy, noting that Republican-controlled legislation only made this change temporarily until Jan. 2, 2023 – which happens to be when Hobbs leaves office.
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