KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about GOP leaders are siding with the Democratic secretary of state to try to let 100,000 voters have a full ballot in November, an open primaries initiative likely going to voters and more, The Show sat down with Lorna Romero Ferguson, Republican consultant with Elevate Strategies; and former Democratic state Rep. Reginald Bolding.
LAUREN GILGER: So let’s dive right into it and the 100,000 — it’s a lot of voters — whose registration is up in the air right now. It’s just six weeks or so ahead of the election.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s office uncovered what they’re calling a glitch in the system that caused this issue. And it doesn’t mean exactly that these voters won’t be able to vote come November, like at all. But we're kind of waiting to see what the state Supreme Court says here, whether or not they can vote in local and state elections or just on that kind of federal-only ballot.
I want to start with the kind of shared timeline issue here, Lorna, and just talk about the stakes. Like six weeks — and mail-in ballots are set to go out really soon. What are we looking at here?
LORNA ROMERO FERGUSON: Yeah, we’re looking at mail-in ballots going out Oct. 9. Overseas voters, I believe they’re going out this weekend, maybe tomorrow. It just causes a lot of confusion.
The timing is extremely unfortunate when you’re looking at how competitive so many of these races are in Arizona. Joe Biden won by 10,000 votes last election cycle. Everybody knows that the Trump-Harris matchup is going to be extremely close in Arizona. So having this question of what type of ballot these voters are going to get this close to the election and the confusion it’s going to cause, is not ideal for either party.
GILGER: Reginald, go ahead.
REGINALD BOLDING: No, I agree. Right now there is no reason to suspect that any of the 97,000, 100,000 voters are non-citizens. And the big takeaway here is that these voters will definitely play a particular role with the state Legislature. So in the event that they’re non-citizens, they’d be able to get a federal ballot. But if for some reason they’re not able to get a full ballot, these state legislative races — which are expected to be very, very close this year — could have a significant impact on just who has power down at the Legislature.
GILGER: Right. So local races can be affected by what we saw in the primary — like what, 45 votes or something, right? So Lorna, what races are you watching if, in fact, this does go that way and they can only vote on a federal ballot?
ROMERO FERGUSON: No, definitely. Besides the Trump-Harris race — because obviously these are voters across the state. We’re not just talking about Maricopa County. This is something that’s impacting voters in every single county. But just looking at Maricopa County, as Reginald just mentioned, that’s where most of the competitive legislative races are. All right. And those are tight margins anyways, just because of the amount of the electorate in each of those legislative districts.
And so when you’re looking at J.D. Mesnard’s race or some of the races in North Phoenix that will determine the makeup of the Arizona Legislature, and these voters are only going to be able to get a federal-only ballot, not participate in those races. That changes the calculus for these candidates in those races.
And so, as quickly as the courts can decide what is going to be the remedy for those folks, the better. But again, timing is not ideal for anyone.
GILGER: Yeah, we’re really up against it on timing. I want to talk about the political sort of strange bedfellows side of the story. You’ve got Republicans now rallying around the Democratic secretary of state, Adrian Fontes. He is calling for the state Supreme Court here to rule that they can vote on a full ballot. As Reginald said, there’s no reason to believe that they are not legal voters here. And they voted in many elections before. There are legal arguments here, obviously, but there’s also the fact that the majority of these 100,000 voters in the breakdown are Republicans, right Lorna?
ROMERO FERGUSON: Yes, they are. And you saw the GOP come out quickly and agree with Secretary Fontes that these voters should not be impacted for this cycle and should be able to vote the full ballot. Which is interesting because the Republican Party has been very critical of Maricopa County and some of these other recorders when it comes to proof of citizenship for voters and whatnot and what ballots they should get.
And so, yes, a large percentage of them are Republican voters or Republicans know that these are going to be close races, and they need every active and eligible voter possible. And then also, because of the time frame, do you really want to risk disenfranchising this many voters this close to the election for something that was not an error of their part? This is a system error. And for them to find out a few weeks before the election that they cannot vote fully would be devastating.
GILGER: As we said, Reginald, mostly Republican voters here, but plenty of Democratic voters as well. What’s the calculation on the Democratic side?
BOLDING: Well, we talk about strange bedfellows. It absolutely comes down to the political calculus. When you look at the most competitive districts, that from a legislative standpoint, there are more Republican than Democratic voters that would be directly impacted and affected by this unfortunate error that occurred. So I do believe what you’re finding is that the GOP is saying, “Hey, if we want to still make sure that we win these races that could be decided by 100, 200, 300 votes, we need to make sure that we ride this wave out, even if it means locking in arms with Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.”
GILGER: At least for now.
ROMERO FERGUSON: For a few days.
BOLDING: At least for now, absolutely. And I would say it is hypocrisy at its highest level. We just got out of a court case in which you’re talking about proof of citizenship, in which you literally had both the speaker of the House and the Senate president arguing that proof of citizenship has to be established for these individuals here in Arizona to have the ability to vote, a full ballot. And now that the political calculus has changed, a little bit of a change in tune.
GILGER: Yeah. You both mentioned legislative races and the potential impact there. What about when it comes to propositions? There are a lot on the ballot, and a lot of really consequential ones.
ROMERO FERGUSON: That’s another fair point because again, these are voters statewide that are impacted. And so statewide questions like these ballot propositions, which a number of them are extremely controversial. You’re looking at the abortion measure. Now we have open primaries that looks like it’s going to be on the ballot. These are ones that are probably going to be very close and contentious from just down the ballot, party makeup. And so, yeah, 100,000 voters, it makes a big difference in some of those.
GILGER: Are there races you’re looking at there in terms of the propositions, Reginald?
BOLDING: Yeah, and know we’re going to spend a little bit of time talking about the open primaries proposition. But as we mentioned, abortion, that proposition. There’s several up and down the ballot that can have direct impact and implications on policy here in Arizona.
So for me, when I’m looking at the ballot, I don't necessarily support any of them outside of the abortion ballot initiative. I do think what you saw was the state Legislature say, “Hey, we can get these bills through the traditional process. The governor wouldn’t sign them. So we’re going to take it directly to the voters.”
And I do think some of these bills may be a little outside of what Arizonans are asking for. But, you know, we’re going to see.
GILGER: Let me ask you both lastly on this front about the election denialism side of this, which this is kind of fueling again, fresh fuel for the fire. They found this problem because they were kind of cleaning the voter rolls and checking voter registration status of people, and they found someone who, in fact, was not a citizen.
So does that make it a tough argument to make to disprove these election conspiracy theorists?
ROMERO FERGUSON: You know, the election conspiracy theorists will take any random thing and run with it, right? And so that was a genuine concern of mine as soon as Stephen Richer and folks were making this public is, what’s going to be the reaction from these election deniers? And to see the GOP come out with their statement in support of wanting to remedy this after the fact and agreeing with Secretary Fontes, that kind of curbed some of it locally. But you’re going to continue to see that chatter.
And I think the longer-term issue is, and what some of these folks have already been clenching to, is this idea that it has not been proven that illegals are voting in Arizona, right? Non-citizens are voting, and they’re stealing the elections, and Democrats are pushing this, right? And so it feeds into that narrative a little bit more.
So I think the bigger concern is when the election doesn’t turn out the way somebody wants, them pointing back to this as one of the issues.
GILGER: Are you predicting that?
BOLDING: Let’s say it. This is a PR nightmare for elections in Arizona. How does this happen at this point in time, with so much at stake? It’s just not a good look for elections in Arizona.
With that said, I’ve already seen some national news outlets say this is the reason why Trump wasn’t able to win Arizona back in 2020. And I would caution folks who actually aren’t familiar with the Arizona election system to pause before they make those statements because this would have not affected the 2020 outcomes at all. Again, these individuals would have still been able to vote in the federal and federal election.
So I do think that this was caught, I think Congressman Greg Stanton Stanton’s statement was, was solid. He asked (U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas) to do whatever he can to help expedite proof, proof of citizenship for these individuals. And you would think that we’d be able to do this for 100,000 folks, to figure out whether or not they have citizenship and get this done.
