Judge shoots down GOP bid to curtail mail-in voting in Arizona

Will it take a civil war to get free and fair elections?

Judge shoots down GOP bid to curtail mail-in voting in Arizona

By Ryan King, The Washington Examiner | June 06, 2022:

A judge in Arizona denied a request from Republicans to bar the state from using “no excuse” mail-in voting in the midterm cycle.

Republican plaintiffs argued the state constitution described voting as taking place “at the polls,” not via mail, but Mohave County Superior Judge Lee Jantzen maintained nothing in the state constitution prohibited no-excuse mail-in voting, which allows voters to utilize an absentee ballot without giving a reason.

“The laws are far from perfect and nobody anticipated thirty years ago that approximately 90 percent of Arizona voters would vote by mail-in ballot during a pandemic, but these laws are NOT in violation of the Arizona Constitution,” wrote Jantzen. “They are not inapposite of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution who emphasized the right to suffrage for Arizona citizens and that the voters’ ballots be secret.”

Since the early 1990s, the Grand Canyon State has permitted no-excuse mail-in voting, in contrast to some other states that require voters to have a valid reason such as medical conditions to be eligible. Arizona has one of the highest usages of mail-in ballots in the country, according to the Associated Press……