Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande/Photo by Howard Fischer/ Capitol Media Services
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
A House panel voted Wednesday after heated debate to prohibit election officials from accepting already filled-out early ballots at polling places unless voters first provide identification.
The party-line 7-6 vote by the Republican-dominated House Committee on Government and Elections came amid questions about whether the measure will erect new barriers to voting. Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, D-Avondale, said this will only exacerbate what often are already long lines to cast a ballot.
But the rhetoric turned contentious among several minority lawmakers with sharply divergent views on what effect HB 2241 would have on members of their own community — and whether requirements to present ID are effectively saying that minorities can’t manage to comply.
“As a person of color … I am a little offended that we say, ‘Oh, poor people or minorities or people of color, they don’t have ID and we’ve got to make is super easy for them to vote,’ ” said Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande. She said she was speaking not only as someone of color but as the mother of a child who is Black and Native American.
“It is a lot offensive that people want to say, ‘Oh, you poor little thing, I’ll help you, we’ll make it easy for you,’ ” Martinez. And she similarly dismissed concerns that residents of some rural areas lack the kind of identification that the legislation would require.
“I can assure you that people in Casa Grande, people in Stanfield, people in Pichacho, people in Superior, Hayden, Winkelman, they have ID,” Martinez said. That’s because when the police come to talk with them, they are asked to produce identification.
House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, told Martinez that just because access to polling places hasn’t been an issue for her and her family does not mean there is no problem.
“I haven’t been shot by police,” he said.
