Arizona G.O.P. Passes Law to Limit Distribution of Mail Ballots

PHOENIX — Arizona Republicans passed a law on Tuesday that will sharply limit the distribution of mail ballots through a widely popular early voting list, the latest measure in a conservative push to restrict voting across the country.

The legislation will remove voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List, which automatically sends some people ballots for each election, if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years.

The vote-by-mail system is widely popular in Arizona, used by Republicans, Democrats and independents. The overwhelming majority of voters in the state cast their ballots by mail, with nearly 90 percent doing so last year amid the coronavirus pandemic, and nearly 75 percent of all voters are on the early voting list. Under the new law, the list will be called the Active Early Voting List.

The State Senate voted along party lines to approve the bill, and Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, surprised many observers by signing the legislation just hours later.

The bill may be only the first in a series of voting restrictions to be enacted in Arizona; another making its way through the Legislature would require voters on the early voting list to verify their signatures with an additional form of identification.

Unlike in other states where Republicans have passed voting restrictions this year, including Florida, Georgia and Texas, the Arizona Legislature did not create a sweeping omnibus bill made up of numerous voting provisions. Republicans in the state are instead introducing individual measures as bills in the Legislature.

The new law signed on Tuesday is likely to push an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 voters off the early voting list, which currently has about three million people. Opponents of the bill have said that Latinos, who make up roughly 24 percent of the state’s eligible voters, would make up a significantly larger share of those removed from the early voting list.

The G.O.P. voting restrictions being advanced throughout the country come as former President Donald J. Trump continues to perpetuate the lie that he won the election, with many Republican lawmakers citing baseless claims of election fraud, or their voters’ worries about election integrity, as justification for the stricter rules.

In Arizona, Republicans who supported the new law argued that it would not stop anyone from voting over all and that it would prevent voter fraud by ensuring no ballots are cast illegally, though there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the state.

“In voting for this bill, it’s about restoring confidence for everyone who casts a ballot, no matter what their party is,” said State Senator Kelly Townsend, a Republican who briefly withheld her support for the bill because she wanted to wait for the completion of a widely disparaged audit ordered by the G.O.P.-controlled Senate. “I have been reassured and convinced it is OK to move forward because we are now looking at other issues that need to be fixed for the 2022 election.”

The Battle Over Voting Rights

Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him, Republican lawmakers in many states are marching ahead to pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.

• • A Key Topic: The rules and procedures of elections have become a central issue in American politics. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning law and justice institute at New York University, counts 361 bills in 47 states that seek to tighten voting rules. At the same time, 843 bills have been introduced with provisions to improve access to voting.
  • The Basic Measures: The restrictions vary by state but can include limiting the use of ballot drop boxes, adding identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots, and doing away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.
  • More Extreme Measures: Some measures go beyond altering how one votes, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules, clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives, and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections.
  • Pushback: This Republican effort has led Democrats in Congress to find a way to pass federal voting laws. A sweeping voting rights bill passed the House in March, but faces difficult obstacles in the Senate. Republicans have remained united against the proposal and even if the bill became law, it would likely face steep legal challenges.
  • Florida: Measures here include limiting the use of drop boxes, adding more identification requirements for absentee ballots, requiring voters to request an absentee ballot for each election, limiting who could collect and drop off ballots, and further empowering partisan observers during the ballot-counting process.
  • Texas: The next big move could happen here, where Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers.
  • Other States: Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill that would limit the distribution of mail ballots. The bill, which includes removing voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years, may be only the first in a series of voting restrictions to be enacted there. Georgia Republicans in March enacted far-reaching new voting laws that limit ballot drop-boxes and make the distribution of water within certain boundaries of a polling station a misdemeanor. Iowa has also imposed new limits, including reducing the period for early voting and in-person voting hours on Election Day. And bills to restrict voting have been moving through the Republican-led Legislature in Michigan.

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