opinion

Attorney General Mark Brnovich fights to uphold Arizona's voter suppression law

I understand the strategy. I mean, if you can’t get people to vote for you then you figure out a way to keep them from voting.

I don’t quite understand why the guy we elect to the top law enforcement job in the state goes along with that, however.

Unless, perhaps, it’s about putting political party above everything else, above the basic principles of our democracy.

There’s a lot of that going around these days.

So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, is fighting to uphold a voter suppression law passed by the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature.

A disappointment, sure. But not a surprise.

A solution in search of a problem

A while back, Republican lawmakers who found they weren’t doing that great with Latino, black and indigenous voters decided to outlaw what became known as ballot harvesting.

It means, essentially, that a neighbor or other volunteer agrees to deliver a neighbor's or friend’s early mail-in ballot to the polls or the post office.

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The justification for a law prohibiting this practice is that it protects against voter fraud. The problem with that logic is there has been no fraud that anyone can point to. Which makes the law seem less like a way to prevent fraud than a way to shut the door on lawful ballots.

So, not too long ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it.

Now, Attorney General Brnovich has sought and received a 90-day stay of that decision so that he can appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And who knows? The court, now with a majority bolstered by two appointees of President Donald Trump, may choose to go with political party over Constitution.

Is it voter fraud or political fraud?

There’s a lot of that going around, too.

You’d think that lawmakers in a democracy would want more people to vote.

You'd think they would want to make it easier for people to vote.

Nope.

As I’ve said before, the problem in Arizona was never voter fraud. It was (and is) political fraud.

Judge William A. Fletcher summed up the speciousness of Arizona’s the ballot harvesting law in the 9th Circuit’s decision when he said, "The history of HB 2023 shows that its proponents had other aims in mind than combating fraud. HB 2023 does not forbid fraudulent third-party ballot collection. It forbids non-fraudulent third-party ballot collection.”

There’s a name for that: Voter suppression.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.