AZ Republicans Blindsided By Legal Move To Thwart Vote Suppression

0
2217

The voting rights advocacy organization Democracy Docket is reporting that the Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party have taken “the first step” in legally challenging a suppressive new Arizona law. This law, established by Republican leaders in Arizona, allows for a non-governmental third party working at the direction of the state legislature to force the removal of certain voters from the rolls via designating their registrations as invalid. Allowing for such a “purge” could clearly present problems for the orderly functioning of democracy, since the punitively broad provisions put in place by Arizona Republicans could threaten voters whose registrations are in fact perfectly acceptable.

Arizona Republicans don’t exactly have a great track record in appointing non-governmental third parties to handle critical issues. Republicans from the Arizona state Senate tapped a firm called Cyber Ninjas to conduct an audit of the presidential election results in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix — despite the fact that the company had absolutely no previous election auditing experience. Unsurprisingly, the Maricopa County audit has been a mess, and serious, lasting questions have arisen about whether a remotely credible report will even be able to come out of the endeavor. Considering these circumstances, applying a similar framework to examinations of voter registrations in Arizona could be disastrous.

As Democracy Docket explains it, the new Arizona law “allows third parties designated by the state legislature to review the state’s voter rolls in search of ineligible voters,” and this law “also mandates that any voters deemed ineligible by the third parties must be removed from the rolls — without requiring any notification that the voter’s registration has been cancelled,” the organization adds. As Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison put it, “rather than leaving elections to election professionals, Arizona’s Republican legislature has granted itself the power to appoint a private party to unilaterally disqualify voters without even giving them notice.”

Now, Democrats from the national and state parties have “sent a demand letter to Arizona officials arguing that this law violates the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions by infringing on the due process rights of voters,” Democracy Docket explains, adding that such a move is “the first step in commencing litigation under the National Voter Registration Act.” The Arizona law in question is one of a dizzying array of suppressive new election regulations put in place by Republicans in state governments around the country.