{"id":3344,"date":"2022-09-01T07:26:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T07:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=3344"},"modified":"2022-09-01T07:26:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T07:26:37","slug":"a-voting-rights-battlefield-in-swing-state-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=3344","title":{"rendered":"A Voting Rights Battlefield in \u2018Swing State\u2019 Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Mark Hedin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arizona lawmakers have become national leaders in trying to suppress non-white people\u2019s voting power. But a proposition on the November ballot could put a stop to some of their new rules before they take effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The months-long post-election \u201caudit\u201d Republican legislators ordered for Maricopa County in early 2021 ultimately added more votes to Joe Biden\u2019s victory total in the 2020 presidential race. But over the past two years the razor-thin Republican majority in the Arizona state legislature has nonetheless insisted that, despite all evidence and court cases to the contrary, the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its proposed remedies \u2014 restrictive and meddlesome changes to voting laws \u2014 almost inevitably hit voters of color hardest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, according to the secretary of state, a voting-rights initiative, \u201cArizonans for Free and Fair Elections<\/a>,\u201d got 399,838 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Only 237,645 signatures are required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart of what makes Arizona so interesting,\u201d said Sean Morales-Doyle, of the Brennan Center for Justice<\/a>\u2019s Voting Rights and Elections Program, is that despite \u201canti-democratic rhetoric, restrictive voting measures, and partisan review bills that Republicans push, there\u2019s also an opportunity for voters to push in the opposite direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections initiative would counter recently enacted changes to mail-in voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also calls for Tribal input on locations and hours for polling places, would safeguard voter privacy and restrict who can access election equipment and voters\u2019 ballots, extend early voting, expand disabled voters\u2019 access and voters\u2019 choice of polling places, and address registration issues, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would also bar the legislature from overturning presidential election results, something one recent proposal would allow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although that last proposal is still only a suggestion, other new restrictive or meddlesome measures are already on the books:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a state where 75% of the electorate has signed up to be able to vote by mail and, since 2010, two-thirds do, state Senate Bill 1485 \u2014 passed last year \u2014 will make voting by mail more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SB 1485 changes eligibility rules for voting by mail and cuts the number of drop boxes for those ballots. It\u2019s expected to reduce the number of Arizonans who automatically get a ballot in the mail every election by 11.6% overall \u2014 340,000 voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the law isn\u2019t color-blind. A recent Brennan Center study <\/a>found that when SB 1485 replaces the state\u2019s \u201cPermanent Early Voting List\u201d with a new \u201cActive Early Voting List,\u201d it stands to drop 23% of the registered Natives living on reservations from the new list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 21.1% of the Latinos. And 14.8% of Black voters. And 11.7% of Asian Americans. Whites? 8.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those reductions, not yet in place, will be based on whether or not people voted by mail in any of the previous four years\u2019 elections \u2013 no matter if they voted instead in person at a polling station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they haven\u2019t voted by mail, they\u2019ll be sent a postcard saying they\u2019re no longer on the list of those who can and will be required to fill out the absentee ballot request form again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is one of many examples of a policy that restricts access to voting that on its face appears race-neutral, but when we dig a little deeper, it\u2019s going to disproportionately impact people of color,\u201d Morales-Doyle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SB 1485 also threatens election workers with hefty fines for seemingly minor infractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere doesn\u2019t seem to be a particularly good reason,\u201d Morales-Doyle commented. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to impose additional costs (on voters), and those matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s this year\u2019s state Senate Bill 2492, that expands voter ID laws despite Supreme Court rulings<\/a> (2013\u2019s Arizona v Inter Tribal Council) that found they generally discriminate against voters of color<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese restrictions impact some voters more than others,\u201d Morales-Doyle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 2020 election, every state in the country except Vermont has seen efforts to change how elections are conducted. That activity has simmered down some, but not in Arizona.<\/s><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than simple partisanship,\u00a0Brennan Center research into what\u2019s driving this wave of restrictive voting activity<\/a>\u00a0across the country, found racial resentment at its core: It\u2019s \u201cthe inter\u00adac\u00adtion between race and partis\u00adan\u00adship that matters,\u201d and the most restrictive proposals tend to come from diverse regions under GOP control, it concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mark Hedin Arizona lawmakers have become national leaders in trying to suppress non-white people\u2019s voting power. But<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,48],"tags":[66,130,129,85],"class_list":["post-3344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-social-justice","tag-african-american","tag-arizona","tag-voter-rights","tag-voting-restrictions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3347,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions\/3347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}