The “thumb on the scale” of political power over elections by state officers is repugnant!
AUG 31, 2024
Prescott, AZ September 1, 2024… Conservative Democrats, the JFK Wing of the Party, are wondering what happened, much like MAGA Republicans are wondering about the party takeover by war-mongering neo-cons, and of course, Independents are registered as independent for a reason. We’ve all had it with crazy and want sane policy, secure and transparent elections that are fair contests.
For all of the “defend democracy” rhetoric that Democrats spew, the reality is that extreme-left Dems hate the democratic process because there is an element of chance; they are seeking to, under color of authority, seize power to be held in perpetuity. In a moment they disregarded 14 million of their very own constituents and substituted Kamala for Joe, hardly a democratic thing to do. But then it is more about, “do as I say, not as I do.”
Now comes the new and improved, “democracy-defending” Arizona Elections Procedure Manual, a la Fontes, which is yet another attack on the Legislature’s exclusive authority to set the “time, place and manner of elections” under the federal Constitution. Republicans, under AZGOP Party Chair Gina Swoboda, contend the new “orders” rip away authority held by county recorders and other local election authorities. Democrats are in love with the consolidation of power, while Republicans see the wisdom of distributed power (no one unit should have so much power as to overwhelm another in pursuit of bad public policy).
SIDE NOTE: Local story for those outside of Arizona reading this… I support no county population maximum limits, for example, a population greater than 500K would trigger a county split requirement for the Legislature to enact. The county should be subdivided to check the concentration of power.
So once again, the AZGOP must go to court to defend the civil rights of the People against an extreme-leftist agenda. The lawsuit is very straightforward, the AZGOP argues, “Governor Hobbs unlawfully exercised her office by attempting to establish voting locations, drop-off locations for completed ballots, and make ADCRR and ADJC, as well as other state agencies, de facto public assistance agencies, which is outside her lawful authority.”
Arizona statutes are unambiguous concerning who (what office) can distribute and accept voter registration forms and completed ballots. The litigation filing alleges:
- public assistance or disabilities agencies as defined by statute; or
- a location/agency as designated by a county recorder (or designee of a county recorder) or Justice of the Peace.
There is absolutely no reference to the Governor, in what is a colossal overreach of authority. The same is true for determining voting locations, which is way outside of her authority. I never thought I would say this, but I kind of miss the boring days of Governor Doug Ducey.
Uttoh, ya had to poke the bear again didn’t ya?
AZGOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda, calling out the lawless governor of Arizona, made her position crystal clear when she said;
“Governor Hobbs’ actions represent a blatant overreach of her authority and a direct violation of the separation of powers established by our Constitution. The responsibility for designating voting and ballot drop-off locations, as well as handling voter registration, lies squarely with the Legislature and county officials, not the Governor. These executive orders undermine the trust Arizonans place in their electoral process, and we will not stand by as our constitutional rights are trampled.”
Hobbs seems to be taking her marching orders from Dictator Biden’s similar overreach of authority that uses an Executive Order, instructing federal agencies (at taxpayer expense of course) to assist illegal aliens with registering to vote, knowing full well that it is illegal for non-citizens to vote. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the stuff of a banana republic, and it is a criminal act to facilitate another crime. The term “BE A WITNESS NOT A SUSPECT” comes to mind.
One of my favorite X-Land political observers and good friend, George Behizy posted last Thursday, “Similar measures were taken in Michigan by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who designated various state agencies to do the same…. Hobbs’s orders blatantly violate Article 1 Section 4 Clause 1 of the US Constitution which clearly states, ‘The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof[.]’ The Constitutional delegates ALL election oversight to the state legislatures. It doesn’t grant the executive any power to delegate random government departments as vote registration sites or ballot drop-off locations.”
Civics and Government Lesson…
Ya, they used to teach that in government schools, but now they just teach “social studies and equity, division and whatever… The US Constitution unambiguously states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing(sic) Senators.”
Like the President of the United States, “a state Governor or Secretary of State’s ability to enact —edict— such measures remains unadjudicated and was the subject of the 2020 Election challenge Texas v. Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan & Pennsylvania which the U.S. Supreme Court, in one of its most controversial historic decisions, declined to hear. The case divided the states with twenty supporting Texas’ claim, twenty supporting Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and six states undecided.”1
The Texas complaint similarly revolved around three major points:
“Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of presidential electors.
Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters – whether lawful or unlawful – in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of Defendant States.
The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections in those States’ election laws.” (Matthew Holloway, AZ Free News, August 27, 2024)
If the Arizona Supreme Court hears the application, which is it likely to do, and it is adjudicated on black-letter law, it could serve as a reset opportunity for a federal court ruling to settle the question nationally that was left ambiguous in 2020, when the inevitable challenge comes to allow wild west behavior to compromise the ballot chain of custody requirements set down by legislatures.
Arizona’s EPM has been problematic for a long time…
Even with Republican Secretaries of State, the interpretation of how to operationalize black letter law has been a challenge. The concept is fairly simple, regulations must serve the purpose of the law, they may not serve their own purpose. In other words, they must be in pursuance of the law, “An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed.”2
It is not up to the Executive Branch to write law, we have seen that in the recent Chevron Deference case, where the feds got severely smacked down by SCOTUS.
The AZ EPM is intended to be a PROCEDURES MANUAL [emphasis on how to comply with existing law through procedure], not a swipe by the Executive Branch at writing new law, a function that it is not entitled to do under both the federal and state constitutions. Most states have an EPM document, and election process watchdogs should inspect it. Because it is the regulatory framework of “how to,” it does indeed bind election officials to a set of performance standards when it is written in furtherance of actual law.
It seems every Executive Branch officer wants to test the bounds of the separation of power construct. Quit it already, just follow the law.
A meaningful Public Policy proposal…
Many voters have fallen in love with early voting, but mail-in ballots pose several risks. An Overton Window shift is not likely soon because the polity does not fully understand the problem. There is a technological solution that could be deployed to prevent ballot stuffing, check IDs, and protect the chain of custody at unmanned dropboxs at the same time. Think ATM, almost all of us have used one, we know how they work and they would not be prohibitively expensive. There is a prototype available for testing, it just takes law to empower county election officials to use them.
With such a drop box, a voter could slip their Driver’s License or Voter Registration Card into the ATM-like card slot, The machine would recognize the voter’s status, and the screen would then tell the voter what to do. Suppose that all is well, and the voter is told to verify they have signed their ballot security envelope and affidavit (a problem with tens of thousands of Maricopa County ballots in 2020 and 2022). The voter slips the ballot package into the secure slot (that accepts only one ballot at a time) and makes a time, date, and location stamp on the outside of the security envelope. As the box begins to fill up, a signal is sent to the County Elections office that it is time for a pickup to empty the machine. With this simple process, the chain of custody is protected and all manner of compromise is thwarted. It ain’t rocket science, but it will take money. This is an appropriation that would be good public policy and I suspect popular with voters all over America.
In Arizona, it all comes back to a Democrat signing the budget into law for 2025