Earlier this week, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell announced that she would not prevent ballot harvesting. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State’s Office also claimed it was not its job to police who voted and how.
At issue is a newly passed law that prevents the mass collection of ballots from Arizona voters. The Legislature passed the law in part at the urging of Secretary of State Michele Reagan.
Over the years, according to testimony before the Legislature, political operatives have abused voters’ rights by collecting ballots. At the time the law was passed, Arizona was one of the few states that allowed harvesting.
Yet on Tuesday, in an email to the ADI, Hunter Overstreet with the Secretary of State’s Office wrote:
• We generally agree with Ms. Purcell’s statement. Principal objective is deterrent effect of law on groups that would otherwise organize overt ballot collection programs.
• Ballot harvesting is part of the list of criminal statutes related to elections, similar to paying for a ballot. It is up to the police and county attorney to enforce criminal statutes not election officials.
• The world is now full of cell phone cameras and online CCTV at key county offices. Evidence of ballot harvesting can be referred to appropriate law enforcement officials.
• State law allows political parties to have observers monitor the conduct of the election. While these observers cannot use their cell cameras inside a polling place their presence is another deterrent to someone turning in a shopping cart full of ballots.
In other words, the Secretary of State is washing her hands of any responsibility for the security of ballots as they are delivered for processing.
Arizona legislators heard compelling testimony this year from community leaders as to why the state should end the practice of ballot harvesting. At a hearing of the Arizona House Elections Committee on HB2023 lawmakers heard firsthand accounts of the oppressive practices of political machines that prey primarily on lower income neighborhoods through ballot harvesting.
HB2023 put an end to ballot harvesting by making it a class six felony.
Reagan ran for office on the issue which was first brought to Arizona residents’ attention by A. J. LaFaro, former Chair of the Maricopa County GOP. LaFaro caught a ballot harvester in the act, and the video footage shocked the senses.
Reagan later released a campaign commercial in response to her Democrat challenger’s claim that there is no voter fraud. In the ad candidate Terry Goddard says he’d like “to see some evidence of fraud.” With a quick fade to LaFaro’s video, the viewer sees Ben Marin with Citizens for a Better Arizona filling a ballot box with handfuls of ballots.
During her campaign Reagan called the lapse in Arizona law, “absolutely laughable”, “not acceptable” and “provides the opportunity for fraud.”
As the ADI reported earlier, LaFaro’s video has become known as the Yeti sighting, in reference to the fact that the practice of ballot box stuffing has been denied for years, but finally the illusive beast was caught on tape.
Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem stated, “There are few things that surprise me anymore, but this one comes out of left field. For the Secretary of State to receive passage of the very statute that she asked for and championed to help curb election fraud, and then turn her back on its enforcement is an astonishing development.”
Rep. Kelly Townsend said, “Voting was the last bastion of hope that citizens had in preventing the US from devolving into the likes of a third world country, rife with civil war. If the very election officials charged with enforcing the integrity of the voting process refuse to prevent ballot harvesting and pass the expensive buck onto the courts, what stands in the way of full-fledged revolt? This current usurpation of her duty is yet another example of why we need to return to doing things right the first time for the sake of the Republic. This should not be so difficult.”