Arizona Prop. 144 debate focuses on a Swiss billionaire, mail-in voting

Arizonans will vote on Proposition 144 this November, a ballot measure which seems to have much to do with a guy called Hansjörg Wyss.

The measure, referred to the ballot by Republican state lawmakers earlier this year, would make a handful of alterations to Arizona elections — such as requiring voters to show ID before they cast a ballot and banning foreigners from spending money to influence elections.

In a way those are both already the law, but in a debate on Thursday, Greg Blackie with the conservative Free Enterprise Club expanded on how the legislation could be implemented — and change things.

Blackie spoke in favor of Prop. 144 and said the measure will protect elections from foreign interference. Under existing federal law, it’s already illegal for a foreign national to make contributions in connection with state elections.

But Blackie says there’s a loophole: contributing to ballot measure campaigns.

And the example he gave is that of Wyss.

Who is Hansjörg Wyss, and what does he have to do with Arizona’s election system?

Wyss is a Swiss billionaire who has donated millions of dollars to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit that supports liberal causes like abortion rights.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent on multiple ballot measures, including proponents of Proposition 139, the Arizona Abortion Access Act that voters approved in 2024. That measure established a constitutional right to abortion up to fetal viability in the Arizona constitution and was opposed by Republicans. It passed by a wide margin.

Campaign finance reports show that Sixteen Thirty gave $1.25 million towards supporting Prop. 139.

“There’s a foreign national that poured over $200 million into the Sixteen Thirty Fund that then spent over $100 million in the last election cycle on ballot measures across the county. That’s a major problem that this measure will solve,” Blackie said.

In 2024, the Ohio legislature passed a bill that’s remarkably similar to the foreign interference portion of Prop. 144.

The Ohio legislation bans foreigners from making “a contribution, expenditure, or independent expenditure in support of or opposition to a statewide ballot issue or question.”

In Arizona, Prop. 144 was initially proposed as House Bill 2001, sponsored by Rep. Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale). Kolodin is running for secretary of state, Arizona’s highest election office.

But all this leaves some questions unanswered.

Arizona’s Prop. 144 says “foreign nationals may not contribute or expend money or anything of value to influence an Arizona election, and no person may knowingly accept such a contribution.”

And on the debate stage, Blackie said the measure will prevent people like Wyss from influencing elections through the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

But how would that work?

Blackie’s opponent, Tempe Councilman Randy Keating, says it doesn’t make sense.

“Say a foreign national wants to write me a check for $1 million, then I donate to political candidates the next year. How do you really stop that? I don’t know,” Keating said.

Prop. 144 doesn’t clarify how Arizona can prevent a nonprofit from making a contribution if the nonprofit has ever received money from a foreign entity.

The Wyss Foundation and Oceana

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CC BY 3.0

Blackie did not stay after the debate to answer media questions, but he said in a text that it’s somewhat doable.

“It is no doubt difficult to prevent 100%, however I think if, consistent with the constitutional prohibition in Prop. 144, hefty penalties were added by law for violations, that would act as a deterrent,” Blackie said. “And, instead of burdening all lawful political activity, it would likely require a credible allegation of using foreign dollars to influence the outcome of an election by a campaign committee or organization, and then the attorney general launching an investigation into whether the prohibition was violated.”

Blackie said — hypothetically — if an American entity received a large donation from a foreign entity, the attorney general could potentially prosecute.

Keating said if interference from foreign entities was really a serious problem in Arizona elections, lawmakers would have passed a bill to address it in their regular legislative session with bipartisan support.

Attorney Kory Langhofer said there are two recognized ways for the courts to trace the source of commingled money in an account.

“One is called ‘first in first out’ and the other is called ‘last in first out.’ Those are pretty much what they sound like,” Langhofer said in a text.

In other words, the FIFO method presumes the first money deposited into an account is the first money withdrawn or spent. Under the LIFO method, the money most recently deposited is the money that gets spent first.

But that means that someone like Wyss could be free from legal ramifications if Arizona does pass Prop. 144, depending on when they donated to an entity that went on to support a ballot measure campaign in the state.

Prop. 144 and mail-in voting

Arizona and federal laws clearly state that only citizens may vote.

In Arizona, all residents must show ID when they register to vote. When people vote in person, they must also show ID at their polling location. When voting by mail, people sign their envelopes, and their signatures are later verified by election workers to confirm their identity.

Prop. 144 states that all Arizona voters would be required to show ID when casting a ballot, but doesn’t clarify how that would work for people who vote by mail.

Kolodin’s primary opponent Gina Swoboda told KTAR that Kolodin admitted in a private meeting that the measure is meant to hurt mail-in voting, but Kolodin says it’s not an attack on the system.

In Thursday’s debate, Blackie suggested there are multiple ways Arizona can adopt the legislation without doing away with mail-in voting.

“With this measure they would provide some sort of identification. Whether that is writing 4 digits on the envelope where they currently sign and then covering it with a privacy flap or who knows in the future, maybe you can go to My.Arizona.Vote and upload a picture of your ID and then your ballot is verified,” Blackie said.

In 2022, Arizona voters rejected a similar measure — Proposition 309, which would have added voter ID requirements to mail-in voting.

Keating said this measure is just a sneaky way to circumvent the will of the voters and get that idea through. Over 80% of Arizonans voters choose to vote by mail. This latest ballot measure is the product of election denialism stemming from President Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss, Keating argued.

“The doubts were manufactured by organizations like the Free Enterprise Club. … We keep talking about this over and over again as if something is going to change,” Keating said.

Blackie said in the debate that Trump won the 2024 election. But as for whether Trump won the 2020 election, he said “it’s irrelevant to Prop. 144.”

Blackie went on to say the 2020 election was “unprecedented.”

“Many states making up rules on the fly, mass mailing ballots to all voters contrary to their laws, and the influence of hundreds of millions of Zuck Bucks, not to mention the mass suppression from social media companies all on one side of the political landscape. It’s clear that tech billionaires put their thumb on that election, limited the information getting to voters, and it is problematic to change the rules of the game mid game without legislative approval. Nearly impossible to determine the impact all of those factors have on the outcome of an election,” Blackie said.