WASHINGTON — Republicans in the Arizona House passed almost a dozen bills that aim to put up unnecessary barriers to the ballot box and limit Arizonans’ power in their government. The legislation ranges from making it harder for voters to pass popular referendums to eliminating voting centers for voters who might be sick or out of town on Election Day. Instead of focusing on legislation that would address the issues facing their constituents like rising costs and funding for public education, Republicans are dead set on attacking the freedom to vote to stay in power at any cost and inoculating themselves from the will of the people they represent.
“The goal of these anti-voter bills is to take power away from the American people and to give it to Republican politicians,” said DLCC vice president of communications Gabrielle Chew. “Republicans want to undermine our freedom to vote so that they can focus on their wish lists, like passing wildly unpopular tax cuts for the wealthy and rolling back abortion rights, without ever having to face the voters these policies will harm. It’s important we be clear about the goal of bills like these. Republicans simply want to put up unnecessary barriers to the ballot box because they don’t always like what voters have to say.”
This legislation comes from the same state party that pursued a wasteful sham election review that undermined the democratic process in Arizona and took aim at the state’s Permanent Early Voting List, which could purge more than tens of thousands of voters including tribal and Latino communities that are critical to the state. With voter legislation stalling at the federal level, state Republicans everywhere are in lockstep to destroy Americans’ fundamental freedom to vote, and the only solution is electing Democratic majorities in the legislatures.
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