Journalists’ Roundtable: Prop 140 ruling, citizenship news and more

Sept. 20, 2024

This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable topics included:

Judge rules on Prop-140 challenge
Proof of citizenship flap
GCI Report on unspent vouchers
Judge rejects Meadows request
Surprise City Council dust-up
Lake wants MAGA hats at Arizona Cardinals’ games

Judge rules on Prop-140 challenge

Jim Small: “The Arizona Supreme Court said that if it is found that any of these signatures are duplicates, and that it doesn’t meet the threshold, then we are directing you to tell county election officials to not count any votes for Proposition 140. This is something we have never seen before. This is an unprecedented action by the Supreme Court. They ended up walking that statement back after the proponents of the Make Elections Fair Act came out and said that this goes against 80 years of precedent. It’s against court rules. This has no legal basis for you doing this.”

Wayne Schutsky: “The Supreme Court also ruled that this challenge was brought too late. They did not prove that they did not have enough signatures by the deadline. So even if the Supreme Court determines they didn’t have enough signatures, this judge is saying they didn’t do it in time because those ballots were printed. In addition to that, he said, ‘My court doesn’t have the authority to order election officials not to count votes after something appears on the ballot.'”

Proof of citizenship flap

Schutsky: “Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s office was doing essentially a voter role check on a voter to make sure they had proof of citizenship, which has been required in our state since 2004 to vote local in state elections. They found that a person who had been marked that they did have that, didn’t. They actually weren’t eligible to vote; they were a legal resident of the country but not able to vote. That led them down a rabbit hole to find an error with the state’s drivers license datebase, which communicates with the voter registry.”