Federal appeals court throws out Arizona’s ballot harvesting law
PHOENIX — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a 2016 Arizona law that bars anyone but a family member or caregiver from returning early ballots for another person violates the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.
The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also found that Arizona’s policy of discarding ballots if a voter went to the wrong precinct violates the law.
The rulings are a major victory for Democrats who sued to block the 2016 law and the out-of-precinct voting policy.
Appeals Court Judge William A. Fletcher wrote for the divided court that Arizona’s practice of discarding ballots cast in the wrong precinct and criminalizing the collection of another person’s ballot “have a discriminatory impact on American Indian, Hispanic and African American voters in Arizona” in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling also said the ban on what Republicans have called ballot harvesting was enacted with “discriminatory intent.”
Four of 11 judges on the panel dissented, saying the panel struck down duly enacted policies.
The lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and state Democratic Party has been working its way through the courts since shortly after the 2016 law was passed.
The law made it a felony to return someone else’s ballot to election officials in most cases. Republicans pushed House Bill 2023 through the Legislature over objections from Democrats, arguing that so-called “ballot harvesting” can lead to election fraud. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed it, saying it would ensure a chain of custody between the voter and the ballot box.
Attorneys for the state argue the new law ensured the integrity of elections and called it a reasonable step to prevent voting fraud. The state Republican Party joined the defense.
Both parties used ballot collection in Arizona to boost turnout during elections by going door to door and asking voters if they have completed their mail-in ballot. If they had not, they urged them to do so and offered to return it to elections offices. The ballots are inside sealed envelopes, with voters signature on the back.
Democrats used the method aggressively in minority communities and argued their success prompted the new GOP-sponsored law.
The appeals court concluded that a trial judge erred when ruling in favor of the state and Republicans who joined the lawsuit. The ruling also overturned a decision by a smaller appeals court panel.
Fletcher was clear that he didn’t think all Republicans who backed the measure “harbored racial hatred or animosity toward any minority group.” Instead, Fletcher said, Arizona’s long history of racebased voting discrimination and the “the false, race-based claims of ballot collection fraud used to convince Arizona legislators to pass” the bill and other factors “cumulatively and unmistakably reveal” that racial discrimination was a motivating factor.
He noted “false allegations” of fraud by former state Sen. Don Shooter and a “racially-tinged” video of a Latino man dropping o≠ ballots distributed by A.J. Lafaro, former head of the Maricopa County Republicans.