Arizona: No Mules, but Plenty of Jackasses

 

by Pa Rock

Fan of Democracy

Over the course of my lifetime I have been a registered voter in five different states - I think - and of those various states, Arizona was by far the easiest and most convenient one for voting.   (Kentucky was the absolute worst!)   The clerks at the DMV in Arizona routinely ask all patrons if they are registered to vote, and, if they are not, the visitors are given the opportunity  to register right on the spot.  Easy, peasy.  Then the newly registered voters are asked if they would like to receive a mail-in ballot, and if they answer "yes," mail-in ballots begin routinely arriving several weeks before every election.

The Arizona mail-in ballots, as I remember them, come with a postage-paid envelope for an easy mail return.   Or, for those of us who do not trust the post office, there are also drop boxes at various points where voters can return their ballots, and voters may also fill out the ballots in the comfort of their own homes and then take them to their regular polling places on Election Day.  For a state known for its contrariness, I considered the voting routine in Arizona to be quite enlightened.  It was designed to maximize citizen involvement in their democracy.

Of course, not everyone likes an election process that encourages voting.

After Arizona narrowly voted for Biden in the 2020 election, Trump claimed - with zero evidence - that he had been cheated out of victory by rigged elections in several states including Arizona.  A massive and expensive recount only showed that he had lost Arizona by even more votes than originally thought - but still the tantrum rages.  Now an election-denier and Trump supporter is running for governor of the state, and she is already saying that anything other than a victory for her will have been caused by cheating.

Last year a right-wing propaganda documentary film was released which claimed that voting drop-boxes were stuffed with phony votes for Biden by "mules," or people who were paid to carry multiple fraudulent ballots to those boxes.  Not surprisingly, there was no evidence to back up those spurious claims.  So this year the anti-democracy forces are out watching the only two drop boxes in Maricopa County which are located outside on the street.

But those vigilante guardians of the boxes, who are visibly armed and masked with the license plates on their vehicles covered, are doing more than just watching.  There have been claims that they are verbally harassing voters, filming them - and their license plates, and generally intimidating people who are trying to cast a ballot in the way that is most convenient to them.  The Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, who is herself a candidate for governor, has referred complaints about the vigilantes to the state attorney general and to the US Department of Justice.

The Arizona vigilantes are not concerned with democracy or fairness.    Their focus is on winning, and once they control the levers of government they will be able to be far more effective in limiting who gets to vote.

There are no mules interfering with Arizona elections, that is just standard MAGA crap, but there is no shortage of jackasses who are trying to keep people from exercising their constitutional right to vote!