By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs nixed several measures Thursday approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature that she said do nothing to make it easier for Arizonans to vote.
The governor said one proposal would have undermined the current procedure which allows people to automatically get early ballots. She called the current system "secure and convenient,'' rejecting claims that ballots are going out to people who don't ask for them.
Hobbs also vetoed legislation to prohibit the use of machines to tabulate votes unless the equipment was made of parts manufactured in the United States and meets other security standards. The governor, who previously was secretary of state and the state's chief election officer, said no such equipment currently exits.
And Hobbs also found fault with another bill to put into statute the procedures that she herself crafted as secretary of state to verify signatures on early ballot envelopes. She said these standards, several years old, should not be cemented into state law.
The governor, bringing her total of vetoes up to 37 for the session, also rejected a wide variety of other measures including:
- Telling local governments they cannot restrict gun shows at publicly owned buildings. The governor said it "needlessly restricts the authority of cities and towns to make decisions about how to keep their communities safe.''
- Requiring people who are registered sex offenders to notify a school where they have children. Hobbs said state law already outlines the requirements for registration with the Department of Public Safety, saying that agency is "best-equipped to oversee all community notification.''
- Spelling out new penalties for damaging public or private monuments, memorials or statues, a measure that comes after several confederate monuments were vandalized in 2020. The governor said there already are adequate tools to prosecute criminal damage to those items, "including Confederate moments, and increasing the penalties will do little to deter such crime.''
- Mandating the hiring of a new assistant director at the Department of Water Resources with the specific duty of working to import more water and increase water storage. She called it unnecessary and said the duties can be fulfilled by existing agency staff.
And, as previously reported by Capitol Media Services, she rejected a proposal to spell out what procedures medical personnel must follow when a baby is born alive, even in situations where there is no chance of survival.
"The bill is uniformly opposed by the medical community, and interferes with the relationship between a patient and doctor,''
Hobbs wrote in rejecting SB 1600. "It's simply not the state's role to make such difficult medical decisions for patients.''
The move drew an angry response from Sen. Janae Shamp, the Surprise Republican who sponsored the measure.
She noted that Hobbs currently is fighting legal moves to force her to proceed with the execution of Aaron Gunches for a 2002 murder, with the governor saying she wants to be sure the procedures can be carried out in a humane fashion.
"It's sickening that she doesn't feel the same about keeping innocent babies alive,'' Shamp said. "In reality, death by neglect is murder.''
But Hobbs reserved the most vetoes -- three of them -- to kill measures affecting elections.
Possibly the most sweeping would have made it more difficult for people to keep getting the early ballots the want ahead of each election.
Arizona for years had a "permanent early voting list.'' Once signing up to get ballots by mail, people remained on the list until they moved to another voting jurisdiction, asked to be removed or died.
In 2021 the Republican-controlled Legislature repealed that law, instead creating an "active early voting list.''
The big difference was that people could be removed if they did not use the early ballot at least one of four prior elections -- meaning a primary and a general in two successive years -- that person is dropped from the list.
They can still sign up again to get early ballots. And they can still go directly to the polls on Election Day, though that, by itself, does not count toward once again getting a ballot automatically by mail.
The new measure, HB 2415, sought to restrict it even further, saying failure to use an early ballot in one election cycle would result in removal from the list.
House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci said it would ensure that voter rolls are cleaned up.
Earlier this year he told the Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections of one incident where a couple who has been living in a home for a decade "and they're getting 10 ballots.''
"They sent them back, saying 'They do not live here,' and yet they continue to get them,'' Biasiucci said. He said the legislation ensures that the early voting lists get culled faster.
Several voting rights groups had sought a veto. Among the issues they raised is that not everyone wants to vote in every election.
"Over 620,000 early voters cast ballots in 2020 but not in 2022,'' according to Ben Scheel, executive director of Opportunity Arizona. "Under this law, all those voters who choose to only vote in presidential elections and reasonably would expect to receive their ballot in the mail for the next one, would not.''
And while they still could show up at the polls, Scheel said, all that would do is make lines longer on Election Day.'' He also said HB 2415 was one of several measures being advanced by lawmakers based on "disproven conspiracy theories that can only now be treated as lies when they continue to be repeated.''
Hobbs, in her veto message, said the issue was simpler than that.
"I stand ready to sign bills that make voting more accessible, accurate and secure,'' she wrote. "This bill accomplishes none of these goals.''
The governor cited similar reasons in vetoing SB 1074, the one that said tabulating machines must be manufactured domestically. The same measure, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, also would have required the equipment to meet or exceed security standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense.
"The election equipment required by the bill, as well as the problem is purports to solve, does not exist,'' Hobbs wrote.
"This bill neither strengthens our democracy, nor ensures that Arizonans can better exercise their fundamental right to vote.''
Various Republicans, including failed gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake and Mark Finchem who waged an unsuccessful bid for secretary of state, have argued that machine counting is inherently unreliable. But their legal efforts to have it banned entirely have so far failed, as have various bills seeking to mandate hand counts.
The veto of HB 2322 on signature verification standards came as a bit of a surprise as 16 of the 29 House Democrats actually voted in support. It even included a change sought by Rep. Laura Terech, D-Phoenix.
And then there's the fact that it would have spelled out in statute that procedures for verifying signatures on early ballot envelopes -- procedures prepared by Hobbs as secretary of state -- constitute "the minimum requirements for comparison of signatures.'' Any that could not be verified would have to be rejected.
Hobbs was not impressed.
"The standards in this bill are already several years old,'' she said. Anyway, Hobbs said, they are better addressed in a separate Election Procedures Manual, which does not require legislative action to amend, or through ongoing guidance developed by the secretary of state -- now Adrian Fontes -- in consultation with county election officials.
The move drew derision from Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, sponsor of the bill.
"Right now Arizona has no laws setting ANY signature verification rules for early ballots which help ensure only lawful early voters vote,'' he said in a Twitter post. And Kolodin said Hobbs promised in her State of the State speech to "find common ground'' and work across party lines.
"What ground could be more common making her own rules the law?'' he asked.
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