The Arizona Republican Party is trying to kill the preferred method of voting of more than 80% of state residents.
Legal papers filed Friday ask the Arizona Supreme Court to conclude that there is nothing in the state constitution to allow for early voting. Attorney Alexander Kolodin told Capitol Media Services the only form of voting specifically authorized by the framers of the constitution is in person and on Election Day.
What that means, he said, is that anything else — including the current system of no-excuse early ballots created by the Legislature in 1991 — is illegal.
If the justices don't buy that argument, Kolodin has an alternate legal theory. He argues that, at the very least, the state is required to return to the way the situation was prior to 1991.
That still allowed people to get early ballots, but also had to provide some proof they needed it, like being away from their voting precinct on Election Day or a physical disability. And Kolodin said that, at least, would provide more security over early ballots than the current system.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, tweeted a statement defending the security of Arizona’s longstanding early ballot system.
Our early voting system is secure and popular. This lawsuit filed by the Republican Party of Arizona has a single aim--to make it more difficult to vote. I look forward to once again defending the voters of Arizona and defeating this ridiculous attempt to undermine our elections. https://t.co/9MZHinHbhb
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) February 28, 2022
“This lawsuit filed by the Republican Party of Arizona has a single aim – to make it more difficult to vote,” Hobbs wrote. “I look forward to once again defending the voters of Arizona and defeating this ridiculous attempt to undermine our elections.”
The move comes amid extensive debate about early voting and whether it provides opportunities for fraud.
Some Republican lawmakers have proposed repealing early voting statutes entirely. But that has not found favor among sufficient members of the GOP to pass muster given the popularity among voters from both major parties as well as the political independents who make up about a third of registered voters.
Instead, Republican legislators have coalesced around a plan to impose new restrictions beyond the sole existing requirement to sign the exterior of the envelope with the idea that county election officials compare the signatures with those on file. The plan, set for a final roll-call vote, would oblige early voters to provide a date of birth and information from another government document like a Social Security card or Arizona driver's license.
That issue of the legality of early voting isn't the only claim in the new lawsuit.
Kolodin also contends that if early voting is legal — a point he disputes — that still doesn't permit the use of "drop boxes'' for early ballots, something Hobbs has permitted in the Election Procedures Manual. He said state law provides for only only two ways for early voters to transmit ballots for tabulation: delivering or mailing "to the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections,'' or depositing "at any polling place in the county.''
"A drop box is not an office of the county recorder, nor is it a 'polling place,''' he told the justices. And Kolodin said none of this is helped by laws that allow county supervisors to authorize "voting centers.''
"Drop boxes are also not voting centers — which, like polling places, are staffed so that a voter may present identification 'to receive the appropriate ballot for that voter on election day,''' he said. By contrast, Kolodin said, drop boxes are not staffed.
Even assuming that the Arizona Constitution allows the Legislature to authorize drop boxes, Kolodin said lawmakers have never enacted such a statute.
"Thus, the secretary exceeds her legal authority by prescribing drop-box rules,'' he said.
Separately, Kolodin said Hobbs is violating the law by not setting up uniform rules for counties to use when verifying the signatures on early ballot envelopes. But it is the effort to quash early voting that has the potential to forever change how elections are run in the state.
Kolodin is not working from a blank slate.
In January a state court in Pennsylvania struck down that state's law, first enacted in 2019, which allows for no-excuse early voting.
Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, a Republican, writing for the majority in the 3-2 ruling, said that voting "requires the physical presence of the elector. And she said the Legislature cannot change voting laws without first amending the state constitution.
That case, cited by Kolodin in his legal arguments here, is on appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.