In Arizona, who needs the law when there is a trusty Democrat in office?

 People outside of Arizona used to think of it as a quiet state filled with retirees soaking up the sun. The 2020 election put the lie to that image. Currently, we’re watching the Secretary of State make the extraordinary argument that his alleged cheating should get a pass because he managed to rush out ballots before being caught.

During the spring and early summer, Arizona had a successful signature collection effort to place a referendum on the ballot, euphemistically called the Make Elections Fair Act. The Act, if passed, will amend the state constitution to create a jungle primary where the top two candidates, regardless of party, go to the general election. The measure also ranked-choice voting.

The jungle primary system has enabled a far-left state like California to conduct general elections where the two candidates for Congress and the state legislature are from the same party. That’s how Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein were elected—they were opposed by Democrats worse than they were.

Image: Adrian Fontes. YouTube screen grab (cropped).

It’s legally and theoretically possible that two candidates could be Republicans. However, given that Democrats are more organized and that they pass these propositions in states in which they’re already becoming ascendant, it’s unlikely. Also, Democrats cheat. I was in a big box grocery store when someone approached me for my signature. That person told me that the measure was for “open primaries,” a bald-faced lie. In open primaries, each party still holds a primary, but voters can cross party lines to participate in another party’s primary.

But cheating is proving to be the name of the game with this initiative.

Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, who solemnly swore in his oath of office that he would support the constitution and laws of Arizona, is listed as a “technical advisor” for Save Democracy, one of the nonprofit organizations backing the referendum. Now, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) contends that it got on the ballot because there are thousands and thousands of duplicate signatures backing it.  

Around 250 people were found to have signed the petition five or more times. One person signed fifteen times. The AFEC filed suit (Smith v. Fontes) to block the amendment from the ballot, alleging that over half of the purported signatures were collected illegally.

Weirdly, Fontes’s office missed the fraudulent and duplicate signatures when reviewing them to validate the initiative. In his brief to the court, Fontes argued that the proposition should be included on the ballot because his office had already sent the ballots to the printer. That being the case, eliminating the proposition would deny Arizonans their right to “free and equal” elections:

“Once the ballots have gone to print, it is in the hands of Arizona’s voters,” said Fontes. “The person contesting an issue (or candidate) can make a case to the voters, but the Courts cannot usurp the voters’ decision once it goes to them.” 

Fontes proposed that those challengers to the validity of Prop 140’s gathered signatures should seek recourse through future elections.

“After investing their time educating themselves about this ballot measure, it would be wrong for the Arizona electorate later to be told their vote will not be counted,” said Fontes. “Given the far-reaching implications of this Court potentially enjoining the canvass, the Secretary requests this Court to reconsider its previous ruling and affirm the principle that once the ballots have gone to print, any challenge must end.”

In other words, if I cheat but you don’t catch me in time, I win.

It’s not just the cheating that’s a problem. The AFEC further contends the Make Elections Fair Act violates the Arizona Constitution because it contains two constitutional amendments (RCV and jungle primaries) in a single measure where the constitution only allows one amendment per measure.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled last month that AFEC’s suit could proceed to the challenge of invalid signatures even though the ballots began printing that day. The court also included an injunction disallowing counting any votes if it determined that Fontes’s office improperly validated the petitions.

So to summarize, Arizona’s partisan Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a “technical advisor” to a political effort to illegally amend Arizona’s constitution with two amendments in a single measure, somehow failed to do his job and missed thousands of duplicative and fraudulent signatures on a constitutional amendment petition he supports and worked on get on the ballot. He then rushed to get the ballots printed, after which he argued that, because he’d printed the ballots, his failures were irrelevant and the matter was therefore up for a vote.

Is it just me or is there something funny and a huge conflict of interest here?

After all, who needs the law when we have a partisan hack Secretary of State in charge of rigging elections?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/in_arizona_who_needs_the_law_when_there_is_a_trusty_democrat_in_office.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/arizona_republican_wants_your_vote_so_he_s_sharing_his_priorities_the_well_being_of_migrants_and_refugees.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/law_firm_hired_to_investigate_gang_activity_in_aurora_co_reveals_unsettling_details.html

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/union-postal-workers-responsible-millions-mail-ballots-endorses/

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/is_it_too_late_to_ensure_election_integrity_in_2024.html