Arizona's Republican-controlled state legislature advanced bills last month that they claim will improve election transparency — but voting rights advocates worry will actually have the opposite effect.
The state House elections committee last week voted to pass House Bill 2308 – a bill that would bar any future secretary of state from overseeing and confirming the results of an election if they are a candidate. The bill comes after then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs won the gubernatorial election in November.
"There's a lack of confidence from some of my constituents in the election itself," Republican state Rep. Rachel Jones of Tucson, who presented the bill, said during the committee meeting. "I think the optics of that – of a secretary of state running their own election for governor and then certifying that election was a major concern."
State Rep. Melody Hernandez, a Tempe Democrat, questioned why the bill was being presented now but wasn't a concern when GOP Secretaries of State Ken Bennett and Michele Reagan were on the ballot in 2014 and 2018.
Jones countered that the environment changed after the 2020 election and claimed that "there's a lack of confidence in our election process" now, which brought the issue to the forefront.
When state Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, a Democrat from Laveen, asked her if she had "any concrete evidence that there were any misdeeds from the secretary of state in the 2022 election," Jones responded saying "It was more just the optics."...
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