New voting requirements

One week out from the primary election we review the identification process and requirements at the polls.

Transcript:

Michael Grant:
Tonight on Horizon, Phoenix is one of several cities across the nation where immigration-rights rallies are taking place this week. We look at yesterday's rally at the state capitol. Plus, one week out from the primary election we review the identification process and requirements at the polls. Those stories next on Horizon.

Announcer:
Horizon is made possible by contributions by the friends of eight. Members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

Michael Grant:
Good evening, welcome to Horizon, I'm Michael Grant. Mary Peters, former Director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, is President Bush's new nominee to be Transportation Secretary. Peters is an Arizona native and has a 20-year history of transportation administration. She served as Arizona's State Transportation Chief then went on to serve as the 15th federal highway administrator from October 2001 to July 2005. If confirmed by the United States Senate, Peters replaces Norm Mineta, Bush's only democratic cabinet member, who resigned after five and a half years at the post.

Michael Grant:
A coalition of organizations supporting immigrants rights held a rally on Labor Day at the Arizona State Capitol. There was a dual focus to the rally one to call on congress to return to work on legislation for legal immigration reform and also to register Hispanic voters and distribute election materials. The rally was held on Labor Day to call attention to immigrant workers. An estimated one-thousand people gathered for the rally. About a hundred anti-illegal immigration demonstrators made a showing as well. They called on others to support their anti-immigration position. Organizers of the event called it a success.

Hector Yturralde:
I think the message is getting across. I think we brought attention to our march on April 10th. Today's more of an informative type of rally to give out political information on candidates and propositions. We are asking people to come out listen to the speaker and listen to the music and pick up information and register to vote.

Timothy Schwartz:
This is wrong. The system's broken. We are telling our city officials fix our problem. Don't have anymore of these rallies. Deny them the right to march because they're here illegally.

Michael Grant: Joining me now to talk more about the rally is Joel Foster, spokesperson for one of the rally organizing groups "We are America." Welcome to horizon.

Joel Foster:
Thanks for having me.

Michael Grant:
Disappointed in yesterday's turnout?

Joel Foster:
No, not at all. We expected a few thousand people. Most the energy has gone into registering voters and signing up people who are registered to vote by mail and increasing the turnout in the commute.

Michael Grant:
Two functions of the march one to encourage--it says congress. I assume you are talking mostly the House of Representatives. Are you generally satisfied with the senate version of the bill?

Joel Foster:
The senate bill is not perfect and a compromise bill. It's a step in the right direction. A house as refused to hold hearings on the bill and refused to do their job. He asked congress to get back to work and pass immigration reform.

Michael Grant:
Joel, the strong house position is this, let me give you an opportunity to respond. Sure the senate as a comprehensive bill a path to citizenship, guest worker program, increased sanctions, border security. The house is saying if you don't first secure the border, you have really no incentive to get people to comply amnesty process or a guest worker process, they can continue to ignore the law which is do the first thing to secure the border. What's your response?

Joel Foster:
Immigration is complex. It's a complex issue. The house bill wants to solve part of the issue the part of the border. None of the advocates I talked to has not said let's not secure the border. Everybody says that's necessary to do. There's an issue of 12 million people who are here working hard and trying to feed their families. We have to deal with them quickly as possible.

Michael Grant:
I think the house responds, yes, it is a complicated situation. But we have no difficulty figuring out which is the horse and which is the cart. In this complicated situation the horse is selling the border and getting that aspect under control and once that's demonstrated turning to the complex parts of the issue.

Joel Foster:
What we have to focus on are the people here. That's what affects the lives of everybody else in the United States. If you allow people to have citizenship, they can come out of the shadows and you can identify the people in the immigrate community that you need to focus law enforcement on. You can allow people to come out of the shadow economy and pay their full share of taxes. That's what we need to focus on. That's what will make the most impact for everybody in the United States.

Michael Grant:
Is it fair to allow people who violated the law to get in line first over those who perhaps have been waiting for a number of years trying to follow the appropriate procedures?

Joel Foster:
There's a huge wait. That's part of the issue. It's virtually impossible to come here legally from Mexico and Central America. That's part of the problem. We don't have an immigration system. We have a system that's broken and been broken for a long time. We need to fix that part of the problem so people have an opportunity to come here without crossing the border in 120 degrees heat.

Michael Grant:
One of the functions of yesterday's march or intended purpose was voter registration. Any read on that? Successful or not?

Joel Foster:
We haven't counted. It's not a large number of voter registrations. We have focused on people registered and encouraging them to vote by mail. The voter turnout in that community is very low. There's for energy this year. We expect it to go up. Theirs groups facilitating that by encouraging vote by mail.

Michael Grant:
Joel, you've knocked around the process a little about. What's your view on that? You're absolutely correct. Hispanic turnout has been dismal.

Joel Foster:
I think people feel ignored by the politicians on the national or statewide level and this particular issue shows how important it is. If you don't use your voice, then you'll be ignored. Sometimes attacked and people have woken up.

Michael Grant:
Any other events or marches planned for the reminder of year?

Joel Foster:
No, I think most of the effort is continuing to turnout voters. Encouraging people to vote and educating people where candidates stand on particular issues and letting people know how to get to the polls.

Michael Grant:
Any concern of all? After the spring marches organizers express and concern to me that there is a strong possibility of a backlash if the hand is overplayed here.

Joel Foster:
What we saw frankly yesterday I was shocked. There were counter-protestors that came out yesterday and said some very, very nasty things. They were yelling at kids as the "Arizona Republic" reported today. That backlash may have already happened. There's tremendous anger. It showed itself and reared its ugly head yesterday. But we can't ignore 12 million people living in the United States that are working to feed their families and we are going to keep fighting.

Michael Grant:
Thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate the information.

Joel Foster:
Thanks Michael.

Michael Grant:
There are nearly a million-and a half registered voters in Maricopa County. We're one week out from the primary election. The implementation of proposition 200 brings some new requirements for voters and election officials. In a moment county elections director Karen Osborne joins me to talk about some of the exciting new things her department is preparing for. First, Merry Lucero has a look at some of what's new for voters at the polls this election season.

Merry Lucero:
The Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, means new requirements not just registering for vote but I.D. will be required for polls for the primary and general elections. The general election ballot will be a long one.

Helen Purcell:
The length of those ballots -meaning we have 19 propositions from the state of Arizona and about 42 judges who will be up for retention from the general election ballot -but we will be going this year to the two ballot cards. First time that has happened in Maricopa County.

Merry Lucero:
HAVA requires equipment for the physically or visually disabled to vote without a person assisting them. Touch screen ballots will allow disabled people to vote. The long ballot means 15 screens to go through. Voters choose the language on the screen and get a paper record of their vote. Another new service is deaf link.

Woman on TV:
The service here is deaf link. We provide communication access for over 28 million deaf and hard of hearing.

Helen Purcell:
Which allows the deaf who can sign be able to use that sign and we have the interpreter on the other end of the TV monitor who is actually in San Antonio, Texas.

Merry Lucero:
Large print, audio and braille ballots will be available. Another change…

Helen Purcell.
New state laws require hand counts in precincts that may be precleared by the justice department prior to the primary election.

Merry Lucero:
With 300 write-ins on the general election ballots result may be delayed after the election.

Michael Grant:
Joining me now with more on new voting requirements and other stuff is Karen Osborne. She's Maricopa County's Elections Director. Everybody needs to take notes.

Karen Osborne:
Get a pen and pencil.

Michael Grant:
Let's start with a week from today. I'm going to go vote. What do I need to take along with me?

Karen Osborne:
I want you to take your Arizona driver's license if you have that and reflects your current address. That's the very best and fastest way through. If you have a non-operating ID, that's the same.

Michael Grant:
First possible pitfall you stress that. Let's say you've moved and haven't gotten around to changing your address on the driver's license.

Karen Osborne:
A lot of our voters have changed with MVD but didn't pay the $4 to get the new license. They can vote a provisional ballot while they are there. They don't have to come back. We can prove that up on their signatures. There's many forms of I.D. you can bring. We have sent everybody a new voter registration cards. Instead of going to households we sent a sample ballot to every registered voter. Those are as good as driver's license, you can bring utility bills. You can bring the bank statement. Registration from your car or tax statement any two of those substitute for the driver's license.

Michael Grant:
You do need two and both of them need to identify the holder and same address?

Karen Osborne:
And the same address, that's correct. If you don't have anything at all origin sufficient you can vote a conditional provisional and you have to come back, three days after the primary and eight days after the general and you have to come back and prove your identification so we can count your ballot.

Michael Grant:
Literally, the ballot will be held there with a sticky that says needs to show up.

Karen Osborne:
It stays in an envelope with your name and address and all your information. If you come back and prove who you are, we count the ballot. If not, it stays unopened and your ballot votes don't count.

Michael Grant:
How many places, Karen, will exist--I hope it's few in number--who forget necessary I.D. next Tuesday?

Karen Osborne:
We'll have 30 places. When you cross Maricopa County. When you leave the polling place and need to come back because you don't have an I.D. you will have a list of where you can come. They are on our website at recorder.maricopa.gov. And we have a great call center. It's 602-506-1511. If you wake up at 5:00 in the morning and want to know where your polling site is you can call them.

Michael Grant:
Let's cycle back to the mailing. Would I have gotten it two weeks ago in the mail?

Karen Osborne:
We started mailing them two week ago and go up to finishing them today.

Michael Grant:
I notice if I bring that though, do I still need to bring other I.D.?

Karen Osborne:
That's correct, that and the sample ballot and one of the examples we gave. Those two are sufficient to take care of driver's license for you.

Michael Grant:
Now, obviously registration has closed for the primary sometime ago, but it's open for registering to the general election. Let's shift to and have a clean break so people don't get confused at the polls. Okay. I want to register to vote. What do I need to be armed with for that process?

Karen Osborne:
First of all that ends October 9th. At midnight you need to have post-marked by October 9th by midnight. In order to register put your Arizona driver's license, that's the easiest thing to do. That driver's license has to be issued after October of 1996. Now, if you don't have something that's driver's license issued after that time, we need you to provide us a copy of your birth certificate or a copy of your naturalization certificate or a passport. Any of those things are sufficient to get you to register to vote.

Michael Grant:
To avoid any confusion, if you bring your passport along to the polls next Tuesday, that won't work because the passport doesn't carry your address?

Karen Osborne:
That's right. Neither does your birth certificate.

Michael Grant:
Could you combine that with another form of address, I.D. and passport and utility bills?

Karen Osborne:
No, you need to have two things with your address on them. That's why we have a lengthy list of things you have around the house. If I came to the polls in the car perhaps you have the registration in your name or insurance that was in your name and provide a long list of things for people to come so they don't have to come back. We don't do well with people coming back after Election Day. We enjoy them coming back that day. They seem to go home and get the information. That's great. We didn't have luck in March or May to get them to come back.

Michael Grant:
We were talking a couple of weeks ago about early ballots still down?

Karen Osborne:
They are. We are 20,000 light where we were in a like election four years ago and we're 50,000 down from where we were in 2004.

Michael Grant:
Extrapolating weighing this against prior election results, what do you think the turnout looks like?

Karen Osborne:
Boy, it's very difficult to say. It's the hardest question. I fear we'll be in the high teens.

Michael Grant:
Give me a comparative base on that. This is a primary and--

Karen Osborne:
If we look at the last two primaries we enjoyed a 23% turnout in the last primary but only a 20% turnout in the like year four years ago. I don't see much activity out there. I wish we would. I hope everybody does decide to participate and go to the polls.

Michael Grant:
Karen, give me a quick check on if you're polling place will occasionally move?

Karen Osborne:
Yes.

Michael Grant:
You certainly occasionally move. How does a person go about getting basic data?

Karen Osborne: Two ways. A sample ballot and told you where to go and gave you a map and if you call the number 602-506-1511, you can get it that way. You can go to our website recorder.maricopa.gov and it has a polling place locater and give you a map and tell you location and give you a sample ballot this year.

Michael Grant:
So that's--give me a web address.

Karen Osborne:
recorder.maricopa.gov.

Michael Grant:
You can pull up the maps and figure out where to go?

Karen Osborne: Yes.

Michael Grant:
Karen Osborne, always a lot of valuable information. We appreciate it.

Karen Osborne:
Thank you.

Michael Grant:
In late 2005, "Hispanic" magazine featured the top fifty Hispanic restaurants in the United States. Los dos Molinos here in Phoenix made this distinguished list. Nadine Arroyo tells us why tradition and culture are an important part of their success.

Nadine Arroyo:
The sounds of Mexico and all of the traditions have been part of this Arizona establishment for more than a decade. Los dos Molinos is not just a Mexican restaurant. It's the kind of place you might compare to home. From the traditional food to the ambience of a family home. Los dos Molinos has become the hot spot in the valley for good, old-fashioned traditional Mexican cuisine. The restaurant has been recognized as one of the best in Arizona in many publications. In late 2005, "Hispanic" magazine released a list of 50 best places to dine. Los dos Molinos was the only eatery recognized in Arizona. The restaurant is currently listed in the annual 101 great places to eat in AZ guide. At first glance you may think the restaurant is simple and quaint. Once inside you are in a whole new place. Tradition, cultura and the aroma of the food entices you. Victoria Chavez is the reason for the success. She is the proprietor and the secret behind it.

Victoria Chavez:
Everything gets homemade. Today I made the green chili and I made the beans and rice.

Nadine Arroyo:
She's a hands-on owner not to mention a cook of every dish in the house. Her motto, you can't fool the customer.

Victoria Chavez:
You got to put your hands in there to do the work. It's not easy. No. Anytime I say I think I'll make it easier, it doesn't taste the same. You can't open the can of beans and try to put it in a pot and try to sell it. It's not the same. You do the work and blend the jelly and cook it. Then you can sell it. But it's hard work, see, no. You know this morning I had to come make red chili because it takes two hours to make the red chili and you got to make it big pot and fresh and grind your chili and garlic and everything.

Nadine Arroyo:
Los dos Molinos is a dream come true for this New Mexico native. After marrying Eddie in the early 1950s, Victoria and her husband moved into the South Phoenix area. She recalls admiring the 1920's property, where Los dos Molinos now exists, while driving to church. When it went up for sale after years of abandonment, she decided to purchase it and renovate it. Turning it into a restaurant resembling the taste and feel of her own mother's kitchen.

Victoria Chavez:
If we ate out small dinner, it was never good. I used to wonder, gee, we should kept the money. I wonder why can't people cook like at home so you can eat what you pay for? She said nobody cooks like that that's why everybody eats at home. I said no, I'm going to cook like we did at home with my mom and raised. I said I'll bring the jelly from New Mexico and cook everything my mother did at the ranch.

Nadine Arroyo:
With that she decided to name the place after and important appliance relatives who once used to make the family meals.

Victoria Chavez:
They did the flour and chili and they had the Molino and gave it to us. I had a grandmother and they gave us two and we put them together.

Nadine Arroyo:
Among her 10 employees are three dedicated professionals with more than a service at the restaurant. An industry with high turn over her daughter "Cheryl" is a manager. But to all, Victoria is a mother.

Cheryl:
Tell the truth mother?

Victoria Chavez:
You know what? She's the one that stayed with me, other one went to New York and other one said no. And she stay here with me. We run this. When I'm not here she's here. And most of time she's here.

Cheryl:
When you're not here. Sometimes we're not here. Some days I am not here. Thick and thin.

Victoria Chavez:
I made one for you. These are my guys. Come over here. Eat, eat, eat, and eat. Oh, there. It's just like I told you, I have the whip for my horses and stuff but they're my children.

Nadine Arroyo:
And yes, they taught several of them how to prepare the menu including two of our daughters who owns a restaurant. One daughter owns one in Springerville and the other in New York.

Victoria Chavez:
We have extended now and then my other daughter went to New York and so successful. She's the one that made all the food for firemen over here when they were fighting 9/11. She was crying. Telling me mom. I'm so sad. I wish I never come to New York and cry, cry. She called me again. I said why are you crying? I said get up and make a pot of beans and chili and drag it down there to them. She did. She said these is a good idea. I said I bet those guys would love to have that. She did.

Nadine Arroyo:
When asked if she plans to expand the business like in New Mexico for example she doesn't hesitate to say no.

Victoria Chavez:
I'm afraid to move. I always wonder who besides my daughters will get up and make red chili and green chili. Who will roast it and soak them?

Nadine Arroyo:
When are you going to stop all of this?

Victoria Chavez:
Oh, no, because I'll die.

Nadine Arroyo:
You can't.

Victoria Chavez:
Then if I stop, you guys have to go look for job somewhere.

Nadine Arroyo:
The love of her life, Eddie, died in 2005 and her daughters continue to give the Los dos Molinos that unique flair. And she, well, all she wants to do is make everyone who comes here, feel at home.

Larry Lemmons:
Republican Incumbent J.D. Hayworth and Democratic Incumbent Harry Mitchell will go head to head and debate war on terror and stem cell research. Wednesday night at 7:00 on channel 8's Horizon.

Michael Grant:
Hope you can join us for that. Thanks for joining us on this Tuesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Hope you have a great one. Good night. [MUSIC]