Voter Suppression/Election Integrity

[GreyhoundFan]

A good read: "Election deniers face a nationwide wave of pushback"

Quote

When the new Arizona attorney general took office last month, she repurposed a unit once exclusively devoted to rooting out election fraud to focus on voting rights and ballot access.

In North Carolina on Tuesday, the State Board of Elections began proceedings that could end with the removal of a county election officer who had refused to certify the 2022 results even as he acknowledged the lack of evidence of irregularities.

And later this week, a group of secretaries of state will showcase a “Democracy Playbook” that includes stronger protections for election workers and penalties for those who spread misinformation.

These actions and others reflect a growing effort among state election officials, lawmakers and private-sector advocates — most of them Democrats — to push back against the wave of misinformation and mistrust of elections that sprang from former president Donald Trump’s false claim that his 2020 defeat was rigged.

Since that vote more than two years ago, election administrators have regularly found themselves fending off false accusations, baseless lawsuits and violent threats. They have fielded demands that go beyond their official powers — to stop using electronic voting equipment, to hand-count all ballots, to end mail voting or to refuse to certify results. Hundreds have resigned or retired as a result of the pressure and abuse, with some states, including Colorado, reporting that a majority of their county election clerks have turned over since 2018.

Election administrators and their advocates say they are motivated to take action because election denialism does not appear to be going away, even as the evidence has grown — in public polling as well as in the midterm election results — that most Americans have grown tired of it.

Many of those pushing for change are Democrats emboldened by their victories against Republican election deniers in last year’s elections — yet still concerned that false fraud claims continue to dominate within GOP ranks. The unofficial start of the 2024 campaign adds to their urgency, with only a limited window to make changes before the next election cycle begins in earnest.

“We want to protect the people who protect democracy,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), who is working with state lawmakers in Lansing to toughen penalties for threatening election officials or releasing private information about them. Benson is also drafting legislation that would make it a crime to knowingly spread misinformation about elections. Later this week, at a conference of secretaries of state in Washington, she and her counterparts from Minnesota and Arizona will promote those ideas among officials from other states.

“Clearly the laws on the books are not serving as a sufficient deterrent,” Benson said in an interview.

Benson was one of several statewide candidates in key battlegrounds who handily defeated election-denying nominees in November’s midterm elections. She is working with a legislature that flipped to the Democrats, improving prospects for her proposals.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) would have a harder time ushering such laws through her state’s GOP-controlled legislature. But she did seize on an opportunity for internal reforms after replacing Republican Mark Brnovich, who commissioned an investigation into unproven claims of widespread fraud after the 2020 election. As part of that probe, the office’s election-fraud unit sought evidence from a group known for spreading misinformation.

Mayes is now retooling that internal unit to fight threats against election officials and the intimidation of voters, she told The Washington Post in a recent interview. The unit will continue to investigate instances of election fraud, which she said number about half a dozen each cycle in Arizona, far fewer than Trump and his allies have claimed.

“We’re going to be going back to a time when the attorney general’s office didn’t waste taxpayer dollars on chasing conspiracy theories,” Mayes said. “We’re facing a new world in which elections officials are experiencing death threats, in which voters are being intimidated by people showing up at the ballot box, at voting centers, wearing body armor and carrying guns, and in which the Republican Party is trying to undermine vote-by-mail. Those are all things that I think this unit can and should now be focused on.”

Mayes said she has also talked to the Maricopa County sheriff about collaborating to protect polling places and election workers from threats after bands of activists, inspired by Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud, staked out drop boxes in 2022 to photograph and record voters dropping off ballots. She is one of several state law enforcement leaders nationally — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) is another — who have opened investigations into the Trump campaign’s recruitment of alternate electors in the fall of 2020 to try to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

“There has to be a deterrent to this happening again,” Mayes said.

Advocates say more pushback is crucial because so many leading election deniers appear undaunted by their defeats in November. Arizona’s Kari Lake, despite losing the governor’s race last year with a campaign message focused heavily on false claims of election fraud, is considering a bid for the U.S. Senate next year. In two political speeches in Iowa last week, Lake continued to full-throatedly embrace those claims.

In Michigan later this week, leading election denier Matthew DePerno, who lost his bid for state attorney general last year in a landslide, is running for state GOP chairman — with Trump’s endorsement. “No one is more courageous as a defender of election integrity,” Trump told DePerno supporters at a tele-rally this week. “The fake news likes to say, ‘Oh, the election, you have to look forward, not past.’ No.”

Even instances in which election deniers have become violent have failed to check the rhetoric. In New Mexico, a state legislative candidate and fervent proponent of baseless election fraud allegations who lost his own race by more than 50 points was charged with orchestrating shooting attacks at the homes of four Albuquerque Democrats who refused to entertain his demands that his defeat be reversed. After the shootings, Republicans downplayed the idea that stolen-election rhetoric had helped instigate the violence.

The heightened pushback has not come only from public officials. In North Carolina, the State Board of Elections began considering removal of a local election board member after he refused to certify the November 2022 results. The proceeding originated with a complaint from the longtime leader of government watchdog Democracy North Carolina.

Bob Hall sought the removal of two members of the Surry County Board of Elections who together wrote a letter questioning the legitimacy of state election law. One of them, Jerry Forestieri, also refused to join other board members in signing the county’s official results — an act the complaint said amounted to a violation of his oath of office. Forestieri did not cite fraud or irregularities in Surry County but rather his view that a court decision striking down the state’s voter ID law has enabled fraud and undercut confidence in the process.

Trump won rural Surry County in 2020 with more than 75 percent of the vote. Forestieri could not be reached for comment.

The new pushback campaign includes an effort to combat the misinformation that some officials say is at the root of the mistrust and threats.

In Wisconsin, the state’s bipartisan elections commission last year started applying sanctions for what it deemed to be frivolous complaints. In one instance, the commission levied $2,400 in fines against a man who has made a series of false accusations against election officials.

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat who sits on the commission, said she and her colleagues were willing to consider complaints from the public, even ones that sounded far-fetched. But when the volume of complaints grew, many of them from the same individuals and replete with misinformation, the commission concluded that they were being filed in bad faith.

“In those situations — and it’s just been a handful — it was to send a message to the serial offenders that that sort of abuse of process isn’t going to be tolerated,” Jacobs said.

Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, acknowledged in an interview that penalties for those who spread false election claims could run counter to First Amendment protections. But she compared the legislation she is working on to laws barring deceptive marketing practices.

“Individuals who intentionally spread misinformation that then leads to threats or worse targeting election officials are just as culpable and should be held culpable just as those who are actually exercising the threats themselves,” she said.

Michael Siegrist (D), the township clerk in Canton, Mich., said beleaguered election officials want to see action against those spreading lies.

“Someone’s going to have to bring some charges against some folks,” he said. “This notion of, ‘I’m going to come in and try to re-litigate an election afterwards in the court of public opinion,’ especially if it relates to a scheme to overturn the validity of an election — that stuff just needs to have consequences.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm sure Trumpkin is dreaming of outlawing the vote for women and minorities:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More crap in TN

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More moves to suppress Dems in Texasistan:

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More moves to suppress Dems in Texasistan:

 

Aren't there federal laws in place that would prevent this????

There is no democracy in the US. It's time everybody wakes up to that fact.

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More moves to suppress Dems in Texasistan:

 

What are supplemental ballots?  Is this referring to if an election facility runs out of paper ballots during voting hours?  If so, shouldn’t it apply to all counties?  It talks about supplies running short, so I’m guessing they are putting a time limit on obtaining more ballots in a short time frame before having to redo the election because voters aren’t going to wait around for hours.  🤷‍♀️  <—-  I use this a lot lately! 

[church_of_dog]

On 5/3/2023 at 9:20 AM, CTRLZero said:

What are supplemental ballots?  Is this referring to if an election facility runs out of paper ballots during voting hours?  If so, shouldn’t it apply to all counties?  It talks about supplies running short, so I’m guessing they are putting a time limit on obtaining more ballots in a short time frame before having to redo the election because voters aren’t going to wait around for hours.  🤷‍♀️  <—-  I use this a lot lately! 

The article won't open for me, but in my experience as a California pollworker, a supplemental ballot is for when something/someone has been added to the ballot at the last minute, after the ballots were printed.  So there is a separate ballot page for the added information.  I think?

I think anytime a precinct runs out of paper ballots, everyone remaining would have to vote using the electronic machine (even though in my tiny precinct no one normally opts for it at all -- we all prefer paper ballots or mail-in (also paper) ballots).

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

The article won't open for me, but in my experience as a California pollworker, a supplemental ballot is for when something/someone has been added to the ballot at the last minute, after the ballots were printed.  So there is a separate ballot page for the added information.  I think?

I think anytime a precinct runs out of paper ballots, everyone remaining would have to vote using the electronic machine (even though in my tiny precinct no one normally opts for it at all -- we all prefer paper ballots or mail-in (also paper) ballots).

Wouldn’t the whole problem of running out of ballots be prevented if you just print/order double the amount of ballots estimated you need?

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Wouldn’t the whole problem of running out of ballots be prevented if you just print/order double the amount of ballots estimated you need?

That sounds good, but the reality in the U.S. is that only a fraction of eligible people actually vote. In some elections, especially off-year local and state, as few as 20% of eligible people vote. So the cost of printing enough ballots for everyone to vote would be cost prohibitive and a waste. So they estimate how many people will likely vote and print based on that. Recently, the turnout in some elections has far exceeded estimates, leading to some shortages. 

[church_of_dog]

16 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Wouldn’t the whole problem of running out of ballots be prevented if you just print/order double the amount of ballots estimated you need?

I'm not sure it is at all common for precints to run out of ballots -- I assume it has happened somewhere at some time, but rarely.  They generally do have more than needed.  Each precinct only has X registered voters anyway, and the magnitude of others who might show up to vote there and be permitted to do so is very limited.

 

Plus, as I said, there is the electronic option which has no limit.  I still assume supplemental ballots mean for last-minute additions to the ballot.

[GreyhoundFan]

They don’t even try to hide it:

 

[Becky]

Trump allies are leading a campaign to encourage states to pull out of the system that helps identify voter fraud:

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/04/1171159008/eric-investigation-voter-data-election-integrity

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow: "Supreme Court: Alabama must draw new voting map favorable to Black residents"

Quote

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday said the Alabama legislature should have created a second congressional district in which Black voters had a chance of electing a representative of their choice, an unexpected decision from a court that has expressed skepticism of key parts of the Voting Rights Act.

The decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., bucked the court’s recent trend of decisions that weakened provisions of the act. He was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“We see no reason to disturb the District Court’s careful factual findings,” Roberts wrote, adding that Alabama was asking for a radical rewrite of the court’s precedents.

Thursday’s ruling upholds a decision by a three-judge panel that threw out Alabama’s new congressional map, which included only one congressional district with a majority of Black voters even though African Americans make up more than a quarter of the state’s population.

It was a surprise from a court whose conservative majority had signaled it was suspicious of the Voting Rights Act that Alabama was challenging, which the state said requires legislatures to prioritize race over traditional redistricting techniques.

“This decision is a crucial win against the continued onslaught of attacks on voting rights,” said Legal Defense Fund senior counsel Deuel Ross, who argued the case before the court in October. “Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state’s sordid and well-documented history of racial discrimination, race must be used to remedy that past and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process."

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a voting rights expert at Harvard Law School, called the decision “an absolutely stunning development” based on the court’s recent decisions.

The ruling drew a sharp rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote that the question is whether the Voting Rights Act “requires the State of Alabama to intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the State’s population.”

The law, he said, “demands no such thing, and, if it did, the Constitution would not permit it.”

Thomas was joined in part by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

Those four, plus Kavanaugh, had earlier put the lower court’s decision on hold. Because of that, Alabama conducted the 2022 elections using its newly drawn maps. The result was one congressional district of seven is held by a Black Democrat. The rest are held by six White Republicans.

The state was challenging a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel that said the Voting Rights Act required Alabama to create a second congressional district, out of seven, in which an African American candidate would have a good chance of being elected. Alabama’s electorate is 27 percent Black. Those who sued the state alleged that many of those voters are illegally packed into one district, with the rest spread among others so that their voting power is diluted.

Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the state’s congressional map in 2021 to take account of the 2020 census. It maintained a single district in which Black voters make up a majority. That district has long elected a Democrat, while the state’s other six districts are represented by Republicans.

The three lower-court judges who ruled against Alabama — two of them nominated by President Donald Trump — were applying Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which forbids practices that would mean racial minorities “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” The judges concluded Alabama lawmakers should have drawn a second district "in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.”

The case is the first for current Supreme Court justices to consider how to apply the Voting Rights Act to districts drawn with racial representation in mind. In 2019, the court said federal courts had no role in policing partisan — as opposed to racial — gerrymandering.

To challenge a redistricting map, plaintiffs must show that there is a minority community large and compact enough to warrant a district. Then it must show racially polarized voting patterns. The panel of judges in the case at issue said it was not a “close call”: “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress.”

But the Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote last year put the panel’s ruling on hold, meaning the fall elections took place under the plan drawn by the state’s Republican-led legislature, with familiar results.

The fight centers on what is called the state’s Black Belt, which is named for its fertile black soil but also is a swath in which many of the state’s Black voters live. The challengers’ maps would remove some of those voters from the district that now routinely elects a Black congresswoman and create a second district in which a Black candidate would have a much greater chance.

But Alabama said that redrawing could only happen by splitting the counties along the state’s Gulf Coast, which the state contends is a unified community of shared interest because of combined French and Spanish heritage. At oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the state had never been reluctant to split Black voters, who she said also had shared interests.

In another Alabama case in 2013, Shelby County v. Holder, the court dramatically weakened Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required federal approval of changes to voting procedures in places with a history of discrimination. In 2021, the justices limited the ability to challenge voting restrictions opposed by minorities in a case from Arizona called Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

The current case is is Allen v. Milligan.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is another surprise:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is crazy:

[GreyhoundFan]

"Alabama legislature adopts new congressional map that could defy court order"

Quote

The Republican-led legislature in Alabama approved a new congressional map on Friday that increases the percentage of Black voters in two of the state’s congressional districts. But a legal challenge to the map is already in the works, with Democrats saying the change is still not enough to comply with a federal court order.

The new congressional map apportions the state’s 7th Congressional District to include a 50.65 percent Black population and draws its 2nd Congressional District to an area that has a 40 percent Black population. The Alabama Senate voted 24-6 to pass the new plan and House passed the map 75-28.

Gov. Kay Ivey (R) approved the map Friday evening, saying in a statement that the legislature “knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups, and I am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused and produced new districts ahead of the court deadline.”

The map is already expected to be challenged in court.

Legal Defense Fund attorney Ross Deuel represents plaintiffs in Allen v. Milligan — the case that sparked the current redistricting effort. Deuel said Friday that the new map “fails to remedy the Voting Rights Act violation identified by the Supreme Court. Our clients will be returning to court to challenge it.”

Along with that pending legal challenge, a three-judge panel of a federal court that ordered the redrawing of the districts could reject the new map and draw up its own plan if it decides that lawmakers did not comply with the order.

During debate in the legislature on Friday, several Democrats questioned why the legislature was about to approve a map that is likely to be rejected by the three-judge panel.

“Do you like to gamble?” Rep. Phillip Ensler (D) pointedly asked Rep. Chris Pringle (R), the bill’s sponsor, claiming lawmakers had “crystal clear” instructions from the court.

“Again, I believe my plan complies with what the court asked us to do,” Pringle said. He argued that the new 2nd District “provides the opportunity” for a Black candidate to prevail. “If you have a candidate that is well-funded and well-organized … anyone can win it,” he said.

Democrats in both chambers also expressed frustrations over not being able to view the new map ahead of Friday’s votes and over not being consulted during the process of drawing the new map.

“You just ignore us, throw something in our face and just say Black folks don’t need no vote in this state. That’s what you’re telling me,” Minority Leader Bobby D. Singleton (D) said ahead of the Senate’s vote. “‘We don’t care about your voice.’ That’s what it ultimately is. … that only White men and White women should have a voice in this state. That is sad.”

The adoption of the new map comes after a 19-month legal battle over the representation of Black voters in Alabama’s congressional district map. The state legislature assembled for a special session this week following a Supreme Court opinion in June that found lawmakers previously drew districts that unlawfully dilute the political power of its Black residents in violation of the Voting Rights Act. While Black people make up about 27 percent of Alabama’s population, only one of the state’s seven districts is currently majority-Black.

The Supreme Court last month upheld the lower court’s order that Alabama needs to redraw the congressional map so it includes two districts in which “Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.”

The three-judge panel of the federal court, which includes two appointees of former president Donald Trump, had given the legislature until Friday to come up with a new map.

Debate during the special session this week had in essence focused on the definition “something quite close to it,” as mentioned by the court order. The two chambers produced two different maps — a Senate version which would have increased representation of Black voters in the 2nd district from about 30 percent to 38 percent and a House version which increased Black voter representation in the district to 42 percent. A reconciled version of the congressional map was reached Friday by a panel of state lawmakers from both chambers, increasing representation of Black voters in the 2nd District to 40 percent.

Greg Reed (R), the Senate president pro tem, said in a statement that the new map “is a fair solution that positions Alabama’s congressional districts and our voters in the best way possible.”

“While any special session of this nature comes with a lot of work and thoughtful discussions, we are here doing what we need to do to serve our great state and our people,” Reed said.

Former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., the chairman of the nonprofit National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement that the new map “arrogantly defies” the Supreme Court’s decision and that the map would make George Wallace, a former segregationist Alabama governor, proud.

“With Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still intact as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, we must again look to the federal courts to hold the Alabama legislature to account,” Holder added.

 

[Ozlsn]

Federal elections really should be being organised by an independent federal body who sets districts, maintains rolls, and runs the actual election if states can't be trusted to do the bare minimum. And by bare minimum I mean ensuring all eligible voters are able to vote and setting up fair districts and processes independent of political gain. Mind you I also would abolish the electoral college and redraw districts on a population basis rather than a state basis, so I may not be the best person to be suggesting things.

Alabama, seriously here? Just redraw as one district with 7 potential spots and have everyone vote preferentially. There's only 5 million people and you'd likely end up with better representation.

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Alabama, seriously here? Just redraw as one district with 7 potential spots and have everyone vote preferentially. There's only 5 million people and you'd likely end up with better representation.

The Rs don’t want better representation. They want to manipulate things so they can win at any cost. 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

You all read more about all this stuff than I do (I get depressed and just can't) but I'm so confused how Alabama is just straight up ignoring the supreme court. Is there no consequence to this other than people having to sue and start that process over again? 

It's incomprehensibly wild to me that on the one hand the republicans like the SC and happily go along with whatever nonsense....until they don't....and there's just no real push back. The Alabama politicians are like "haha you don't boss us around" but you CAN boss the democrats around.

The cognitive dissonance is too loud.

 

[Ozlsn]

9 hours ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

It's incomprehensibly wild to me that on the one hand the republicans like the SC and happily go along with whatever nonsense....until they don't....and there's just no real push back

Surely this comes under contempt? This should be the point where the SC directs an independent body to draw up a new map of voting districts and holds everyone who submitted the report in contempt.

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

6 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Surely this comes under contempt? This should be the point where the SC directs an independent body to draw up a new map of voting districts and holds everyone who submitted the report in contempt.

It *seems* like that's what's supposed to happen next. But why do I doubt it will? Is this like "oops we don't have a process to remove a president in these circumstances"

"oops we don't have a process when states just decide to ignore supreme court" 

Do they lose federal funds? That seems to threaten school districts into compliance pretty quickly. 

[Ozlsn]

On 7/24/2023 at 1:06 AM, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

oops we don't have a process when states just decide to ignore supreme court" 

Removing federal funding and taking over the federal election boundaries and running would be a good start.

On 7/22/2023 at 9:50 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

The Rs don’t want better representation. They want to manipulate things so they can win at any cost. 

As McCarthy said out loud. The absolute entitlement amazes me - you want people to vote for you? Try acting like a responsible adult.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting: "Arizona GOP rejects single-day vote proposal, angering election deniers"

Quote

PHOENIX — A proposal by Republican election deniers in Arizona who want to opt out of the state’s government-run presidential primary election in 2024 and instead hold the party’s own one-day, in-person election, with paper ballots that would be counted by hand, has caused anxiety among top Republicans in Washington, who fear being drawn into a messy fight.

The state party leader rejected the Maricopa County Republican Committee’s proposal shortly ahead of a deadline on Friday after days of frenzied discussions that involved national Republicans and advisers to former president Donald Trump — likely setting up political backlash in 2024 in a state whose GOP has been pulled to the right in recent years by MAGA loyalists and election skeptics.

Jeff DeWit, chair of the state party, concluded that the party does not have the money, the manpower or the infrastructure to run an election for an estimated 1.4 million eligible voters.

The fight over management of the state’s nominating contest on March 19 demonstrates most vividly the divide between conservatives who want to radically change voting procedures after Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat and those who have accepted his loss and want to work within institutional election norms during the 2024 contest.

The battle — which is playing out within the largest voting jurisdiction in a state that will help decide the presidency and control of the U.S. Senate — follows years of vilification of voting norms by Trump and his supporters. It is a consequence of deepening dysfunction within the party on an issue that has accelerated Democratic gains in the newly competitive state.

“The actions taken by the MCRC are in solidarity with President Donald J. Trump, who has been persecuted, arrested and indicted for taking the very same positions,” Craig Berland, chair of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, said in a video posted this week on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump has not taken a position on the issue, and two advisers said he has not been involved in conversations about the proposal.

But the idea of requiring single-day voting with ballots that would be tallied by hand has sparked dozens of calls in recent days with Trump campaign advisers, Republican National Committee officials and others outside the state, which is viewed as critically important to the Republican Party’s chances in 2024.

Arizona officials who both support and oppose the paper ballot initiative have lobbied Trump’s top aides, including Susie Wiles, Brian Jack and Clayton Henson, to back their position. Some of those officials have argued that Trump would of course support the position, considering he has called for paper ballots in the past, and that he should put out a statement backing the proposal.

Kari Lake, who narrowly lost her 2022 bid for governor after campaigning largely on the false notion that Trump won the 2020 election, has talked to at least one Trump aide about the proposal. According to a person familiar with her discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about them publicly, Lake conveyed support for the idea to the Trump aide but did not ask the former president or his campaign to weigh in.

But other officials in Arizona, particularly DeWit, have said it would be unworkable and could bankrupt the state party ahead of 2024. And they have raised questions about the motives of those pushing the single-day election idea in Maricopa County.

Wiles has told Arizona officials privately that the Trump campaign does not plan to take a position. Nationally, RNC officials also decided to stay out of the fight.

The Maricopa County GOP proposal runs counter to efforts by the RNC and groups allied with Trump to embrace early voting after disappointing election losses. This summer the RNC launched a “Bank Your Vote” program to encourage early voting, while various efforts led by prominent Trump allies or his former advisers are underway to build out programs to collect and return ballots from people who choose to vote early.

The overwhelming majority of Arizonans return their ballots early either by mail, by drop box or by walking them into poll centers that open before Election Day. Echoing Trump, Maricopa County Republican activists have blamed those voting methods, along with the machines that count votes, for losses by Trump, Lake and others.

“As AZGOP Chairman, Jeff DeWit is in control and must accept full responsibility for his decision,” Berland said in an email to The Washington Post after the state party formally opposed the idea.

Invoking a raft of election conspiracies, Berland and other county GOP leaders passed a resolution in late August that demanded the state party withdraw from conventional voting procedures, where voters can cast ballots by mail and elections are run by local officials across 15 counties and overseen by the secretary of state.

Under state law, parties are allowed to opt out of publicly run elections. Under the county party’s model, the cash-strapped state party would pay for the election, draft election rules, locate and set up hundreds of polling sites, and recruit, hire and train election workers. The state party had about $200,000 cash on hand at the end of June, campaign finance records show.

After a week of conversations with national Republicans, attorneys and other party leaders, DeWit rejected the proposal. Beyond the practical complications of finding millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers, DeWit wrote in a letter to state party leaders and obtained by The Post, the proposal could draw lawsuits and unwanted scrutiny.

“Upon detailed consultation with our Legal Counsel, it is now evident that acting on this resolution would breach our bylaws, placing the AZGOP at risk of countless legal complications,” he wrote in the letter late Thursday. “The rushed resolution was proven to be problematic and an invitation for entities such as the Department of Justice to intervene in our election.”

Meanwhile, Arizona Democrats confirmed late Friday that the party will participate in the traditional government-run primary in March, giving those on the left the chance to weigh in on an incumbent ticket.

Party Chair Yolanda Bejarano said in a written statement that Democrats were prepared to reelect President Biden and Vice President Harris while Arizona Republicans “fight over the basic principles of democracy.”

 

[fraurosena]

Boom!