Request to Speak on More Voter Suppression Bills

Bad voting bills coming up in the Arizona Legislature this week.

Monday, February 14th Senate Committee on Government at 2:00 PM SB1338 paper ballots; hand count; precincts (Rogers) prohibits the use of electronic voting and tabulating devices, unless required to comply with accessibility requirements. It requires paper ballots to be used in all elections and counted by hand. It prohibits a county board of supervisors from using voting centers. Why do they object so much to voting centers? OPPOSE SB1465 voting equipment; requirements; records; origin (Rogers) requires the Secretary of State to revoke the certification for vote recording, vote aggregation and vote tabulating machines that do not meet certain requirements. Requires at least one of the members of the Equipment Certification Advisory Committee to hold an industry-recognized cybersecurity certification. Again, more stop the steal paranoia. OPPOSE SB1571 ballot drop boxes; surveillance; appropriation (Townsend) prohibits voted early ballots from being returned by mail. Outlines requirements for ballot drop-boxes, including a monitoring camera. This is ridiculous. OPPOSE      SB1572 voting list; images; cast votes (Townsend) requires a county recorder to publish a list of eligible voters, with certain identifying information redacted, on the county recorder's website 10 days before a primary and general election. Requires a county recorder to digitally publish on the county's website all ballot images and a sortable cast-vote record. Requires early ballots, provisional ballots and election day ballots to be separated, tabulated and stored by precinct as applicable. OPPOSE SB1609 election contests; invalidated election; sanctions (Townsend) says a court will order a new election if it determines the initial outcome was determined not to be the outcome. I am not sure what she is getting at with this one. Hoping that Trump appointed judges will help in the next round? SB1629 registration; verification; images; audits; boxes (Borrelli: Barto, Fann, et al) outlines requirements for "election integrity audits" by the Office of the Auditor General, the posting of digital ballot images, registration of voter registration collectors with the Secretary of State, voter list maintenance procedures, signature verification training and testing, ballot drop boxes and hand count audits. OPPOSE SB1638 early ballots; visually impaired voters (Pace: Shah) requires any Arizona election to provide for voting by the use of a remote accessible vote by mail system for persons with a visual impairment. SUPPORT SCR1012 legislature; ninety house districts (Mesnard) will have a strike-everything amendment on voter identification that refers to the ballot a measure to require an early voter to provide the voter's date of birth and a copy of certain early voter identification when returning an early ballot. Removes the authorization for a person to provide two different forms of identification without a photograph in order to receive a ballot at a polling place. OPPOSE SCR1032 plenary legislative authority; elections (Townsend: Borrelli, Gowan, et al.) says the Legislature reaffirms the Legislature's plenary power with respect to elections and opposes any attempt by the federal government to usurp or otherwise interfere with state legislative sovereign authority over elections. This is objecting to much needed measures such as the Freedom to Vote Act. OPPOSE Tuesday, February 15th Senate Committee on Appropriations at 2:00 PM SB1411 early ballots; tracking system (Mesnard) requires counties with a population of more than 100,000 persons to provide an early ballot tracking system and provide voters with access to the system on the county's website. Appropriates $700,000 to the Secretary of State for establishing a grant program for counties to establish an early ballot tracking system. This seems fine and is similar to what we have in Maricopa County. Wednesday, February 16th House Committee on Government & Elections at 9:00 AM   HB2041 ballot fraud countermeasures; paper; ink (Biasiucci: Blackman, Chaplik, et al) requires certain types of paper, ink, watermarks, etc. for ballots, furthering the big lie related to voter fraud. OPPOSE HB2240 elections; voting centers prohibited (Hoffman: Barton, Burges, et al) prohibits voting centers. This is another measure to discourage early voting. OPPOSE HB2242 voter registrations; validation requirement (Hoffman: Barton, Biasiucci, et al) requires elections officials to independently verify the accuracy of the name, address, date of birth, and driver's license number on every voter registration form. This will create significant delays in new voter registrations. OPPOSE HB2491 elections; signature matching requirements (Hoffman: Martinez, Parker) requires a multi-factor (there is a blank in the bill) signature verification for early ballots and makes it a Class 5 felony if a person does follow that. OPPOSE HB2492 voter registration; verification; citizenship (Hoffman: Blackman, Carter, et al) requires proof of residency to register to vote -- an ID with a current address, creates new restrictions for federal-only voters, even though the state has no authority to do so, and provides new ways to punish non-citizens who may register to vote. OPPOSE HB2703 auditor general; audits; county elections (Bolick: Biasiucci, Blackman, et al.) provides for "election integrity" audits. Again, more of the same. OPPOSE HCR2025 government-issued voter identification (Fillmore: Biasiucci, Blackman, et al) refers to the ballot a measure relating to voter ID. OPPOSE Sign on to your Request to Speak account, click the blue Request to Speak button, click on New Request in the nav bar (left column), then simply cut and paste the bill number into Search Phrase (for example: HCR2014). Push blue Add Request button, weigh in FOR or AGAINST, click No on Do you wish to speak? (in person), leave a short Comment, and click on SUBMIT. For another submission, click on the New Request link in the nav bar on the left and follow the directions above. If you had an account with RTS previously, it is still active. If you do not have an account, go ahead and set one up, but someone will have to help you activate it as it requires going to the Capitol. Reach out to Civic Engagement Beyond Voting. Wanna speed up your Request to Speak experience?  If you don't have a comment to leave, you can go to My Bill Positions page, cut and paste the bill number into that box, click on thumbs up or thumbs down, and push the blue ADD button. You won't have to wait between each step.