(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Court To Decide Next Week Whether AZ Fair Elections Act Makes Nov. Ballot [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2022-08-11 Navajo voters ride to the polls in 2020. The strong turnout of Native voters led to the Legislature introducing more than 100 voter suppression bills. The Arizona Fair Elections Act, which will stop voter suppression, goes to court next week to see if it will be placed on the ballot. A three-day trial is set for next week to decide whether technicalities will prevent Arizonans from voting in November on the Arizona Fair Elections Act. Circulators collected 475,000 petition signatures by the July 7 deadline, more than twice the number needed to get on the ballot. If you would like to help us with the campaign, please donate at ActBlue Right-wing lawyers have filed suit challenging the signatures on a line-by-line basis. They asked to throw out all the signatures from circulators who had the best days. They are also trying to throw out months of work by any circulator who happened to get a signature from an unregistered voter. Our lawyers tell us the challenge was expected. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph P. Mikitish is hearing the case. Three days seems like a short amount of time to work through the challenges of hundreds of thousands of signatures, but the printing deadline for November ballots is coming up in late August and the case may have to go to the Arizona Supreme Court before the presses can start to roll. The judge has appointed retired Judge Larry Winthrop as special discovery master to handle the review of the signatures. He is a well-regarded retired Arizona Court of Appeals judge. The Arizona Fair Elections Act cleans up some past voter suppression problems in Arizona law, gives the state one of the best voting rights laws in the country and protects the rights of voters into the future. It has such features as automatic voter registration for drivers, election-day voter registration and extended early voting. It protects the voting rights of disabled people. The law also has a number of important provisions to protect the rights of Native Americans, whose rights have been under attack in the Legislature. One provision prevents the Legislature from stealing the state’s electoral votes and ensures they are cast for the candidate who wins the election in the state. It reduces the gifts that can be given by lobbyists to lawmakers. With the primary behind us, the contours of the general election landscape are becoming clearer. In the Senate race, Blake Masters, a young, Nazi-quoting gofer for an out-of-state billionaire, is off to a poor start, trailing Sen. Mark Kelly by 14 points in the latest poll. In the governor’s race, Kari Lake starts the race nearly 10 points behind, despite near universal name recognition from years on Phoenix TV. Katie Hobbs, the Democrat, starts the race with nearly 50% support. Not much polling out on our Secretary of State race, where election-denier Mark Finchem is facing Adrian Fontes. If you would like to support our campaign financially, please give at ActBlue or write to me at Arizona Deserves Better, c/o Eric Kramer, 1910 Douglas Fir Dr., Pinetop, AZ 85935. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/11/2115902/-Court-To-Decide-Next-Week-Whether-AZ-Fair-Elections-Act-Makes-Nov-Ballot Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/