Extensive efforts by Congress to facilitate voting and enforce the disclosure of dark money spending in elections drew widely mixed reactions from congressmen from northern Arizona, including counties of Apache, Navajo and Gila.
Democrat Tom O’Halleran said the bill will strengthen democracy and prevent fraud. Republican Paul Gosar said the purpose of the law was to “fraudulently elect Democrats”.
Meanwhile, US Supreme Court hearings on a lawsuit against Arizona electoral restrictions signal potential problems for a federal electoral rule overhaul, even if just-passed House Resolution 1 somehow survives a Senate filibuster.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema said she supported the suffrage bill but would oppose any efforts to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, which means the measure would require 60 votes, including 10 Republicans to become law.
HR 1 would expand early and mail-in voting, which would make it harder to clear early voter lists, require automatic voter registration, eliminate partisan gerrymandering, tighten government ethical standards, add a new public funding option for campaigns create and demand disclosure of expenses through “dark” money groups to influence elections.
O’Halleran, a Democrat who represents the White Mountains, the Navajo Reservation, southern Gila County and parts of Pinal County, said, “I was proud to pass this important piece of legislation that strengthens our democracy, the security of ours Elections ensure dark money from politics and protect important voting infrastructures such as postal voting, which the Arizonians have used for decades. “
However, Gosar, who represents most of western Arizona and Rim Country, said he voted against HR 1 because it would “radically” change the electoral process.
“HR 1 is full of regulations to undermine voter registration requirements, accept voter applications from minors, and implement online voting that would increase the potential for hackers and cybercriminals to commit election fraud. This legislation has nothing to do with protecting elections; it is about facilitating the fraudulent election of Democrats. “
The bill is coming as the newly installed Conservative majority in the Supreme Court opened a legal challenge to two Arizona election restrictions.
Arizona law allows election officials to discard ballots cast in the wrong place – even if they are otherwise valid.
Arizona Second Law prevents anyone other than a caregiver or family member from casting someone else’s signed, sealed postal ballot in the polls – a practice known as “ballot picking.”
Proponents of these two measures argued that they were a legitimate effort to reduce the risk of electoral fraud.
Critics claimed that the two provisions effectively discriminate against minority voters who are shown to be more likely to vote at the wrong polling station.
Voting interest groups have also made efforts in the past with considerable success to harvest ballot papers in minority neighborhoods.
The judges’ questions, however, seemed to signal a reluctance to make a second assessment by the legislature as long as the restrictions were not to be clearly discriminated against.
When Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked a Republican Party attorney why his client cared about whether a vote was cast in the wrong district, Attorney Michael Carvin replied, “Politics is a zero-sum game and any extra vote you get from unlawful interpretations of.” Section 2 hurts us. “
Most observers predicted that the court would uphold both voting restrictions, even if the restrictions affected white and minority voters differently.
The hearing suggested that the court would judge many provisions in HR 1 even worse, which would override a growing number of government voting restrictions, particularly mail-in voting, early voting and auto-registration.
Previous Supreme Court rulings have put down attempts to restrict the ability of corporations and stakeholders to spend as much money as they want to influence elections without disclosing their spending.
Arizona lawmakers are already considering a resolution against HR 1 in violation of states’ right to control their own elections. Legislators are also considering a variety of bills that would severely restrict inbox and early voting. Arizona has relied on mail-in voting more than almost any other state for decades.
No audits or studies have shown a higher rate of electoral fraud related to mail-in voting, which 80% of Arizona voters used in the last election. However, many Republicans claim that the mail-in voting system itself is more susceptible to fraud.
The provisions in HR 1 and an accompanying package of ethics calculations include:
• Extends automatic voter registration and same day registration;
• Strengthen voting by post;
• protects elections from interference from abroad;
• deals with partisan gerrymandering;
• promotes the transparency of digital advertisements;
• Forcing candidates and campaigns to reveal dark money;
• reins in lobbyists’ influence; and
• Enforce ethics and conflict of interest rules for all government officials.
O’Halleran said in a press release, “This legislation is taking important steps to ensure the transparency Americans deserve from their elected officials. I am proud that initiatives that I have advocated to ensure accountability and scrutiny and prevent tax dollar waste are included in this legislation. “
Gosar saw the legislation very differently.
First, he criticized the Democrats for refusing to accept his proposed amendment, which would have required the immediate disclosure of contributions made with a foreign credit card.
Gosar alleged hundreds of thousands of votes were fraudulently cast in Arizona and voted not to accept the state’s presidential election until the state had time to conduct a “forensic review” of the elections.
Several judges dismissed repeated claims by the Arizona Republican Party for widespread electoral fraud. The judges ruled that the Republicans did not produce any evidence of fraud that could affect the election results.
Gosar said the rules to lift government restrictions and expand things like automatic voter registration when someone gets a driver’s license or making it easier for people to stay on a voting list are designed to make it easier to commit fraud, not to make it easier for them to commit People to choose.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “and her Liberal colleagues introduced this legislation to remove accountability in future elections by radically changing our voting methods,” Gosar said in his regular email newsletter to voters.
Peter Aleshire covers county government and other issues for the Independent. He is the former editor of the Payson Roundup. Reach out to him at [email protected]
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