(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Arizona Democrat. Gov. Katie Hobbs thwarted three election integrity bills, including one that her own office championed as state secretary of state.
Hobbs claimed the bills, which included laws cleaning voter rolls and increasing signature verification processes for early mail-in ballots, were unnecessary and called for voting access to be expanded instead in a veto letter.
“Arizona’s Active Early Voting List is secure and convenient for voters,” the Democrat governor claimed. “I stand ready to sign bills that make voting more accessible, accurate and secure. This bill accomplishes none of these goals.”
Republican lawmakers slammed Hobbs’s vetoes.
“Right now, Arizona has no laws setting any signature verification rules for early ballots, which help ensure that only lawful early voter’s vote,” Arizona Rep. Alexander Kolodin said in reference to vetoed bill HB2322. “What ground could be more common making her own rules the law?”
This particular bill, which had gained bipartisan support with 16 House Democrats voting in favor of it, sought to codify the Arizona state department’s own election rules into state laws, policies that Hobbs herself championed when she was secretary of state. “The standards in this bill are already several years old,” Hobbs said.
The bill, however, would have mandated the secretary of state to seek legislative approval before amending the policy. As of right now, the state department can unilaterally bend the law to their wishes.
“Instead of legally enforceable rules, she would like ‘ongoing’ signature verification ‘guidance’ that is non-binding and can be changed on a whim by a single person,” Kolodin told the Arizona Mirror. “That is hardly democratic – or sober and responsible governance.”
The three vetoes are part of Hobbs’s campaign promise to push back against election integrity. Shortly after allegedly winning the hotly contested 2022 gubernatorial election, which is still being litigated, Hobbs claimed that Arizona’s election laws did not need to be overhauled and promised to block any attempts that aimed to do so, according to the Washington Post.
HB2415 would have ended the permanent absentee voter list, which automatically mails unrequested ballots to registered voters if they do not participate in an entire election cycle. One of the key issues with unrequested ballots is that they are the ones “most susceptible to being stolen, altered and forged,” according to a Heritage Foundation report. The bill would have avoided mail ballots from being sent to old addresses.
“If you’ve ever moved and ever had your mail go to your old address for three years, you’d understand why we need more frequent voter roll clean up in terms of the early ballots,” said Kolodin in a speech before the state legislature. “I think that’s a common sense thing. This is a common sense reform.”
All democrats vote AGAINST common sense voter roll cleanup.#HB2415 AZLEG @alex4arizona explains why it’s necessary. pic.twitter.com/tiBsEM1pNc
— AZSuburbs 🌵 (@noprezzie2012) February 21, 2023
SB1074 was the last election integrity bill to be thwarted. The bill would have prohibited electronic ballot tabulators and mandated for all components of voting machines be manufactured in the United States, Democracy Docket reported.
