PHOENIX – Today, the League of Women Voters of Arizona filed an amicus brief in the Arizona Supreme Court in the matter of Arizona Republican Party v. Hobbs – a case that threatens to end all early voting in the state – and request that the Court dismiss the petition.
The brief states that the petitioners are looking for “a tectonic shift in the way Arizona conducts its elections.” The Arizona Republican Party is requesting that the Court invalidate all early in-person and mail-in voting, which the state has had in some form for more than a century. This change would make Arizona stand alone in the nation as the only state to require all voting to occur in person on Election Day. The League of Women Voters of Arizona contends doing away with early voting will have a broad, harmful effect on Arizona voters by withdrawing a whole spectrum of easily-accessible means for casting and returning ballots, including the use of ballot drop boxes.
“Arizona has a long history of early voting periods that ensure all voters across the state can vote,” said Pinny Sheoran, president elect of the League of Women Voters of Arizona. “Eliminating early voting severely hinders voter access for those in underserved communities, including the elderly, voters with disabilities, and those who live in rural communities or lack reliable transportation to the polls. The League strongly advocates equal access to the ballot for all, and we will fight any efforts to make voting more difficult for the people of Arizona.”
“It is improper for Petitioners to seek such extreme changes to long standing Arizona voting laws just three months before ballots will go out for the August primary,” said Jon Sherman, litigation director and senior counsel at Fair Elections Center. “This lawsuit could have been brought at any time last year like a normal case in trial court. Petitioners’ effort to bypass much of the state court system and upend voters’ and election officials’ settled expectations at the 11th hour should be firmly rejected by the Supreme Court of Arizona.”
The League of Women Voters of Arizona are represented by Fair Elections Center and the Law Firm of Mitchell Stein Carey Chapman.
The full brief can be found here.
