Measure to protect early voting in Arizona won't be on ballot

But they still may get a chance to weigh in on a separate question of whether state lawmakers should be given their own constitutional rights to make changes to the process — changes that could effectively eliminate the practice used by more than 80% of Arizona voters.

Stacy Pearson, who Lumen Strategies managed the Protect the Vote Arizona campaign, said Wednesday that it looks like circulators were able to collect about 439,000 signatures on the petitions to put the issue on the November ballot. That is above the 383,923 names that election officials would need to find valid.

But Pearson acknowledged that given the normal error rate on these kinds of petitions — whether people have moved, are not registered, have failed to fill out addresses, or other technical problems — she expects that the final tally will fall below what is necessary.

And given the high likelihood of failure, Pearson said organizers have decided to submit the petitions. She said that would be providing information to "election-denying politicians'' like Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap of who supports voting by mail.

What's next, Pearson said, is for the organizers of the initiative to now work to keep a measure crafted by state Rep. Alexander Kolodin off the ballot.

The measure by the Scottsdale Republican, who also is a GOP candidate for secretary of state, proposes various changes involving elections. These range from how and where ballots can be tabulated to restrictions on donations from foreign nationals in political races.

But what is also in the proposal, which was approved for the ballot by the Republican-controlled legislature, is language that, if approved, would require all voters to show "valid government issued proof of identity'' before casting a ballot.

The concern of foes is that the proposed constitutional amendment does not explain how that actually would work for the more than 80% of Arizonans who now get early ballots.

Instead, that would be left to future legislators. And, protected by constitutional language, they would have wide latitude to decide — a latitude that foes say could result in elimination of the ability to drop a ballot in the mail, leaving only in-person voting.

In fact, Gina Swoboda, the former head of the Arizona Republican Party who is running against Kolodin in the GOP primary for secretary of state, called his proposal "a stealth attempt, in my opinion, to kill voting by mail.''

Pearson said the money left over from the Protect the Vote campaign, financed largely by the United Food and Commercial Workers and other unions, will now be devoted to convincing Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Adele Ponce to block the Kolodin-crafted measure from going on the ballot.

That lawsuit is being led by Tempe Councilman Randy Keating.

He is not arguing it is illegal for lawmakers to ask voters what they think about a possible requirement for all voters to provide ID and what that might do to early voting.

Instead, Keating is arguing that Kolodin has piled too many unrelated issues into a single take-it-or-leave-it proposal. Keating said that forces people who may want to support some of what is in the ballot measure, like spelling out that only U.S. citizens can vote, would also have to give their approval to other things they don't want, like the language on voter ID.

Ponce has not yet set a hearing on that legal challenge.

Pearson said if Keating's legal challenge fails, the next step will be to convince voters to reject the proposal in November.

"There will be a robust 'no' campaign,'' she said.

Kolodin, in a social media post, cheered the failure of the Protect the Vote Arizona campaign to qualify for the ballot.

"It isn't November yet but I just beat Democrat Adrian Fontes at the ballot box!'' he wrote. That is based on his claims that the secretary of state and "the radical left'' are the ones not just promoting the now-defunct initiative but have been trying to kill his ballot referral.

Kolodin also is using the referral in his own bid to get people to vote for him for secretary of state.

But Swoboda said there are good reasons for voters to reject not just Kolodin, but the constitutional amendment he is trying to push. And the key, she said, is that vague language about requiring identification to vote.

"There's no specific language about how you're supposed comply with the requirement to provide ID with a mail ballot,'' said Swoboda, who is the former chair of the Arizona Republican Party.

And the possible options, she said, are not acceptable and would get rid of ballot secrecy.

"I don't want to put a Xerox of my ID in an envelope with a mail ballot,'' Swoboda said. "Because then I don't have a secret ballot anymore.''

Prior to 1991, there was no such thing as universal early voting. Instead, people who wanted to get a ballot by mail had to prove a need, whether due to handicap or illness or the fact that they were not going to be in their voting precinct on election day.

That year the Republican-controlled legislature agreed to allow for no-excuse early voting.

There was little controversy about that until the 2020 election when many Republicans, including President Trump and Kelli Ward, who was the state GOP chair at that time, argued that early ballots and vote by mail made it easier for people to cheat — allegations that were never proven.

More recently, Kolodin, representing the Arizona Republican Party, filed suit to quash early voting.

He pointed out in the 2022 lawsuit that the Arizona Constitution requires all voting be done in a way to protect secrecy.

But Kolodin argued that can't be done if people fill out their ballot elsewhere, with the possibility that they have sold their votes or been intimidated. What that leaves as the only legal option, he said, is to have votes cast an an official polling pace where government officials can watch to ensure that one one else is interfering as people fill out their ballots and drop them into tabulation machines or boxes.

His claims were rejected by the Arizona Supreme Court.