By Kiera Riley & Ray Stern | Arizona Republic
Dozens of bills that propose significant and often restrictive changes to Arizona’s election system — with many based on false conspiracy theories — have survived the first stage of the journey to become law.
Legislators filed about 140 bills that deal with some aspect of elections, out of nearly 1,700 bills total. The tally initially included slightly more than 100 Republican-sponsored bills that address issues of security in elections and who is allowed to vote.
As the session goes on, the number of those Republican bills that still have a chance to become law dwindles.
Legislative committees had to hear bills by a Feb. 18 deadline; about 40 failed to reach that first step. The roughly 60 that passed committee include some of the more restrictive proposals, like bans on drive-thru ballot casting and most voting centers that allow people from any precinct, and prohibiting early voting for most Arizonans.
The House and Senate separately have approved 18 bills total as of Feb. 25; no bills have yet cleared both chambers. Two bills failed on votes of either the full House or Senate, though one of those is up for reconsideration.
Several of the most extreme bills failed to get a hearing or even get assigned to a committee. Those include eight of nine election-related bills by Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, a candidate for the secretary of state’s office who proposed a ban on electronic registration information centers and wanted a resolution declaring the 2020 presidential election in Arizona invalid.
The most prolific sponsor of elections bills this year is Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, the chair of the Senate Government Committee that hears such proposals. She sponsored 24 of them. All but two of hers are still actively being considered.
The bills that weren’t heard by the deadline likely are in the dustbin, but lawmakers could revive them using what are known as “strike-everything amendments” to existing bills.
As of Feb. 25, election-related bills had replaced eight other bills as strike-everything amendments. These pieces of legislation also are ones to watch, and include proposals to allow the state attorney general to enforce election laws even in federal races and to ask voters to tighten early-voter identification rules.
More bills likely will get weeded out during the legislative process. But voters who think the election was stolen — and critics who fear democracy may be in peril — are waiting to see how Arizona law might change this year.
The next important date in the process is March 25. That’s another deadline for a committee vote, but House bills will go before Senate committees and vice-versa.
The Arizona Republic will continue to update the following list throughout the legislative session to help the public keep track of the many proposals:
