PHOENIX \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
The legislation will remove voters from the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s eligible voters, would make up a significantly larger share of those removed from the early voting list.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 worries about election integrity, as justification for the stricter rules.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn voting for this bill, it\u2019s about restoring confidence for everyone who casts a ballot, no matter what their party is,\u201d 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. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him,\u00a0Republican lawmakers in many states are marching ahead\u00a0to pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.<\/p>\n