Journalists’ Roundtable: Election Reform Bills, Guns on Campus Bill, Transgender Sports Bill, Education Funding Cap, Fake Trump Electors, ACC Kills New Energy Rules

Jim Small of Arizona Mirror, Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic and Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic discuss with Ted the major topics of the week.

This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable covered:

• Election Reform Bills
• Guns on Campus Bill
• Transgender Sports Bill
• Education Funding Cap
• Fake Trump Electors
• ACC Kills New Energy Rules

What do you think about the election reform bills?

Laurie Roberts: “I do worry a little bit that in conjunction with other things in these bills, adding QR numbers and holographic things, and serial numbers that no one will be able to see, at some point is our ballot really secret anymore? You can say that won’t be shown, but show me a ballot that’s secret and I’ll show you a hacker that’ll find the information.”

One of the bills says that they would require hand counting of votes within 24 hours? Does anyone understand how difficult of a process that would be? Would fraud not increase with a hand count?”

Jim Small: “No, they don’t understand, or they are willfully ignorant. One of the two, willfully obtuse about this… if you think about it, there were three million ballots that were cast in 2020. Each of those ballots has anywhere between 20 and maybe 100 races and judges and ballot measures and local measures and school boards and water districts and fire districts. To count all of those in 24 hours by hand… you can’t do it in two months. Let alone 24 hours.”

Is anyone more open to guns on campus? Are university police departments any more open to this idea?

Mary Jo Pitzl: “No, they are not any more open to this. this idea keeps coming up because Jan Brewer got a lot of these bills and she vetoed them. They sort of went quiet during the Ducey era. But they are back and the sides are lining up just as they have been before.”