A bill under consideration in the Arizona Legislature would make being paid to work in a voter registration drive a crime on the same level as assault, domestic violence, DUI, criminal damage and disorderly conduct.

I am not making this up.

In Arizona, registering voters could be a crime.

Democracy much?

A misdemeanor offense?

Already in Arizona a voter registration worker can’t be paid based on the number of individuals he or she registers to vote.

House Bill 2616 would make paying someone, or getting paid, to register any voters a crime. A Class 1 misdemeanor, for which a guilty party can receive up to 6 months in jail, fines of $2,500 or more and years of probation.

Those who work for political parties are exempt.

Why? If getting paid to register voters is criminal, why shouldn’t it be criminal for party operatives?

Special interest organizations, clubs and others stage voter registration drives. Working on such drives can be a part-time job for some people. It is NOT evil.

It's not coercion

Federal law says it is illegal to pay a citizen to register. But paying someone to register others has not been a crime, and should not be a crime. If anything we should find more ways to get people registered. House Bill 2215, for example, would automatically register a person as a voter when applying for a driver's license or renewal.

Registration workers can’t tell people they must register for one party or another, or use any kind of coercion. Shouldn’t we use all the methods available to register as many qualified voters as possible?

This particular bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Kelly Townsend, who earlier introduced several bills aimed at punishing the educators in the Red for Ed movement.

Where this is coming from

This is also the lawmaker who turned a debate over banning bump stocks, which transforms an ordinary gun into what amounts to an automatic weapon, into an abortion argument.

She said at the time, "We are in a culture of death where it's OK if you have an unwanted pregnancy to just go ahead and kill that child.”

The subject was bump stocks.

Townsend is also the lawmaker who posted online a fuzzy shot from last year’s women’s march at the State Capitol of what appeared to be a topless marcher and wrote that women who demonstrate such “moral defiance” … "will have no defense when you are sexually harassed or even worse, raped."

The awful logic

Actually, there’s no defense for that logic, or for the logic of HB 2616.

Getting paid to assist qualified individuals to register to vote and exercise their rights as citizens should not be a crime.

Just as expressing some type “moral defiance” (whatever that is) should never – ever – countenance rape.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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