Just when it seems safe to assume that our leaders have run out of many creative ways to overturn future election results they don’t like, they undermine democracy. I come up with a new plan to make it happen.
That is, an automatic redo of an election that had to wait in line for over 90 minutes for 1,000 voters in Maricopa County (250 in other counties).
It doesn’t matter if those voters actually voted. If many of them have to wait at least 90 minutes and perhaps don’t like the outcome of the election, they can order a new election.
Indeed, what could go wrong?
Bill is the latest bad bill from the leader of the Freedom Caucus
Senate Bill 1695 Courtesy of Senator Jake Hoffman of R-Queen Creek. A former phony elector who heads the Arizona Freedom Caucus, Hoffman is the creator of numerous bad bills, including a genius proposal to raise property taxes to divide Maricopa County. (He’s from Pinal County.) Hoffman touts his latest brainstorming as a way to weed out the legions of disenfranchised voters that no one will find in 2022. Now if they actually exist?)
“It happened in Maricopa County,” Hoffman told a Senate government committee last month. “To be honest with God, I could find examples from the Jim Crow era of the South doing exactly the same thing they did to voters in the South. I did.”
Funny enough, I missed the poll tax and literacy test in last year’s election. What I’ve seen is long lines of Republicans being instructed by their own party to stop voting early and instead vote on Election Day. Add in the sloppy work by the county, and too many printer malfunctions lead to even longer voting lines, creating chaos.
The hurdles to contest and overthrow an election are fairly low
What you didn’t have, according to county election officials and the conclusions of several judges after several trials, was evidence that the legions of disenfranchised voters cost Kari Lake the election. In fact, no one testified during Lake’s two-day trial in December.
SB 1695 eliminates the process that if at least 1,000 Maricopa County voters (or 250 voters elsewhere) file affidavits with the Superior Court, the county must rerun the election. set and said: Submit your ballot. “
Alternatively, it can be asserted that election officials failed to comply with any provision of the 640-page Election Procedures Manual. This is likely either a technical or serious violation. Or you can swear you witnessed the failure to maintain the chain of ballot control.
A special master appointed by the court is given five days to verify these claims. No explanation as to what is possible.
No Guardrails, No Bipartisan Support, No Problems
And there’s nothing in the bill that would stop voters who actually voted in the 91st minute from demanding new elections, claiming they were disenfranchised.
Get 1,000 people in Maricopa (or 250 anywhere else) and you can ask for a retry too.
Unsurprisingly, the bill passed a government committee chaired by Mr. Hoffmann by a 5-3 partisan vote. It won preliminary approval in the Senate on Monday, with a final vote scheduled for Wednesday.
“It’s unfair to the people of this state that county election officials have repeatedly broken the law and gone unpunished,” Hoffman said.
Actually, I agree with him on that point. Just to note that county elections officials have not been found to have broken any laws. But I digress.
Do you know what is unfair?
1,000 people who had to wait 91 minutes to vote could invalidate the votes of 1.5 million voters.
Roberts can be reached at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow @LaurieRoberts on Twitter.
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