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The Center for American Progress reports
As residents of Arizona's eighth congressional district cast ballots in a special election to replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in Congress, roughly 140,000 of them may be unaware they are eligible to vote because they did not receive the ID card the county is required to send them after they register.
According to the Arizona Republic, Maricopa County officials have not sent all voters the cards they can use to cast a ballot under Arizona's voter ID law because of an issue with the company used to print the materials. The paper reports that just 60,000 ID cards have been mailed to people who recently registered or changed their registration, while about 140,000 have not been sent.
[...] Arizona was one of the first states in the country to enact a non-photo voter ID law when a ballot measure was approved by voters[1] in November 2004. Under the law, the state must take steps to ensure that all eligible voters have an acceptable form of ID. According to the secretary of state's office[PDF], "a county recorder must issue a voter ID card to any new registrant or an existing registrant who updates his or her name, address, or political party preference".
But because of an error by the company used to print the ID cards, they have not been mailed out since December.
Although these citizens could provide other forms of ID at the polls, some voters told the Arizona Republic they're concerned that less informed voters may not realize they are registered without the card.
[...] During the presidential primary in March 2016, some Maricopa County voters waited in line for up to five hours to cast a ballot. The chaos led to an investigation by the Department of Justice and numerous lawsuits, including one filed by the Democratic National Committee.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Arizona was required to pre-clear any changes to its voting law with the DOJ.
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(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:00PM (2 children)
That shouldn't be a large problem, really. It's that state's sole responsibility to have free and fair elections for its people. However...
There should be a US federal level election oversight committee, and if they decide that one state's vote was rigged, just disqualify all the votes of that one state, for that one election (needless to say that that state doesn't get to deliver senators or congresspeople either, for that period of 4 years or so).
I'm sure it would not happen very often then, and only by truly desperate corrupt state-level politicians. Which would help that state's voters to vote the bastards out next time, and thereby reduce the shame that their state was such a corrupt laughing stock that they couldn't even organize a democratic election properly (unlike, say, Afghanistan).
Since the perp state was clearly broken anyway, if they decide to secede out of anger at having their votes rejected, it's good riddance anyway. Corrupt states don't benefit the greater whole, they're just a drain from the whole to the local elite.
Now the next problem becomes: who guards the federal level election oversight committee from fraud? :-)
I think I read that your president Trump is organizing a committee to study voting irregularities, because he claimed that the vote was rigged. Haven't read about their results yet.
[PS I wrote this thinking about the EU and Jaroslaw Kaczynski's PiS government in Poland. I don't think the last election was rigged, but when/if it will be, there are repair mechanisms. The EU mandates that all states that want to be a member are functioning democracies. Amputate the rotten leg.]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 29 2018, @07:19AM (1 child)
I said to my Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, thank you for your service, you can go home. Nice way to say, you're fired. They did a great job, they didn't finish the job. Because a lot of the states wouldn't turn over the voter records. It was getting to be a lot of lawsuits for us to get that. So I said, no more Commission, let's do this another way.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:24PM
On a completely unrelated note, were you able to file your taxes on time this year? I thought you might have had some trouble getting them in before the deadline, considering how busy you've been making America great all over the place.
If you'd like, I can doublecheck them for accuracy just to be safe, no charge. And of course, I guarantee confidentiality through Random-Tax-Return-Reviewer-Client privilege.