Another Blatant GOP Voter Suppression Law Hit With Legal Action In Arizona

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) have moved to intervene in a federal court case in Arizona challenging two suppressive, election-related laws in the state. These laws include Senate Bill 1485, the provisions of which call for the removal of voters from a widely used permanent early voting list if they don’t vote by mail in two consecutive election cycles, and Senate Bill 1003, which limits voters who send in their mail-in ballots without signatures to fixing the mistake by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Mail-in voters whose signatures are found to conflict with their signatures on file will still have up to five business days after Election Day to correct the issue.

The original Arizona lawsuit against these laws, which impose procedural hurdles for voters in the absence of meaningful evidence of election integrity issues, was filed by a coalition of advocacy groups including Mi Familia Vota, Arizona Coalition for Change, Living United for Change in Arizona, and Chispa Arizona. As explained by the voting rights organization Democracy Docket, the lawsuit “alleges these laws violate the First, 14th and 15th Amendments as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by burdening the right to vote, particularly among voters of color in Arizona.” Besides the DSCC and DCCC’s move to intervene on the side of the plaintiffs, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) have moved to intervene on the side of the challenged laws.

Meanwhile, a widely touted audit of the presidential election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, found that — as officials had previously determined — Biden was the winner. The so-called audit was overseen by Republicans from the Arizona state Senate, who tasked a company called Cyber Ninjas with leading the audit operation despite the firm’s complete lack of previous election auditing experience. The audit effort was defined by conspiracy theories to the point that auditors were at one point looking for bamboo fibers on the basis of the notion that fraudulent ballots may have been shipped in from Asia — and even this decrepit, incompetent operation determined Biden was the winner.