A conservative Arizona lawmaker introduced legislation this week that would prohibit no-excuse early voting and mandate that every ballot be counted by hand no later than 24 hours after the polls close.
House Bill 2596 was put forward by the legislator in order to give increased oversight of elections to lawmakers, which he said would adhere more closely with the state constitution.
The bill would eliminate the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona elections.
Arizona Public Media says that the state legislature allowed voters to vote by mail without an excuse in 1991.
We should have voting in person, one day on paper, with no electronic means and hand counting that day, according to Fillmore.
In the late 1950s, Jim Crow-era literacy tests were used to prevent Black citizens from participating in elections, and the 24th Amendment banned the use of poll taxes as a precondition for voting.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was overwhelmingly passed by Congress, barred discrimination in voting. After the hearing, he told Capitol Media Services that he did not support reverting to electoral practices that were allowed before the passage of the VRA.
The proposal would allow the legislature to overturn election results from legislative races, as well as congressional and statewide contests.
The proposal is currently written to give the legislature the ability to start a session after an election, and any qualified elector may file an action in Arizona's Superior Court.
Arizona, a long-time Republican bastion that has transitioned into a southwestern swing state, has been ground zero for some of Donald Trump's conspiracy theories.
While most Arizona officials have long contended that there was no electoral malfeasance at the local level, Trump and many Republicans across the country have continued to promote the claim that the vote was tainting, notably in the state's most populous jurisdiction and one that voted for Biden after decades.
Trump told a large crowd at a rally earlier this month that he would never back the Republican if he ran for Senate in the state.
The election audit that Republicans nationwide used last year was very important to the victory of Biden over Trump.
During the Wednesday hearing, he said that he lacked confidence in the results due to serious concerns that weren't addressed.
I don't care what the press says. I don't trust ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. He said that he felt like he had a lot of ex- wives around him.
This is not a President Biden thing. This isn't the other red-headed guy thing.
In the 2020 election, Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in 1996 to win Arizona, edging out Trump by 10,457 votes.
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