Arizona State Senate
1700 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Press Release
PHOENIX – Senator Priya Sundareshan (LD18), Ranking Democrat on the Senate Elections Committee, and Senator Anna Hernandez (LD24) released the following statement after a string of Republican-backed plans to intimidate voters has been strengthened by a Maricopa Superior Court Judge’s decision to side with the Arizona Free Enterprise Club.
“Once again, Republicans are brazen enough to write down their radical plans to attack our democracy. First, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announces it plans to recruit 100,000 people to “monitor” early and election day voting. Then, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) emailed Arizona elections officials their plan to watch and film voters as they lawfully drop off their early ballot. Now, the AZ Free Enterprise Club has gotten a judge to throw out common sense guidance included in Arizona’s official election rules addressing and attempting to stop voter intimidation. This is nothing short of a coordinated campaign by radical right-wing organizations to normalize and expand efforts to scare voters from dropping off their early ballots on or before election day and make it more difficult to vote.
In 2022, Arizona made national news when a judge had to order one such group to stop taking photos of or filming voters within 75 feet of a ballot box and posting those images and videos online. Now, CPAC, by their own admission, is promising cameras and video equipment to film voters in “a selection of drop boxes in select counties” based off repeatedly debunked claims of voter fraud. This is exactly the type of behavior that led voters to submit formal complaints that they were being harassed and intimidated simply for voting in 2022 (Washington Post). This surveillance won't be in Republican strongholds; they will be in communities of color, college campuses and other locations solely based on where they deem such voter intimidation to be politically advantageous to Republicans.
We've seen this play before. These groups' coordinated plans will subject voters to intimidation based entirely off of what these “observers” think looks “suspicious.” CPAC claims they will look to “open-source information to identify those who are not eligible to vote.” This could be the sort of inaccurate cellphone geolocation data used in the “film” 2000 Mules that led Arizona’s Republican Attorney General to request federal investigators look into the film’s creators. It’s not hard to image how CPAC will be able to use this data, just as they did in 2022 when engaging in voter harassment campaigns. The court’s recent decision will make it harder to address these claims.
CPAC claims their purpose is to address and mitigate skepticism of drop boxes by those “on the right side of the political spectrum.” Perhaps a better way of addressing this skepticism is to stop fabricating false claims of voter fraud. Since 2020, we've seen more debunked claims of voter fraud and illegal ballot collection than we can count, and yet no evidence was ever provided. Here’s an easier solution: If you have proof of voter fraud, show it; otherwise, stop making it up.
Even though a court has recently blocked election rules that prohibit certain forms of voter intimidation, voter intimidation is still a crime in this state (see A.R.S. 16-1012). Voting is a fundamental right in our democracy, and we will fight every day to make sure voters are able to lawfully cast their ballot without being intimidated, harassed or dissuaded in any way.”
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