Rep. Jake Hoffman
Opinion: Insanity continues as Republicans, in their quest to root out election fraud, have passed a bill that could send up to 200,000 longtime Arizonans scrambling to prove they are U.S. citizens.
By Laurie Roberts |Arizona Republic
Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, who sponsored House Bill 2492, which could require long-term voters to prove they are citizens.
The Great Arizona Voter Purge rages on, as our leaders continue their temper tantrum over Donald Trump’s loss.
This time, it appears they could be going after hundreds of thousands of Arizona’s oldest voters, people who’ve been casting ballots in the state for decades.
If you registered to vote in Arizona before 2004 and never provided proof that you’re a U.S. citizen — a number that includes close to 200,000 voters who got their driver’s licenses before Oct. 1, 1996, in the days before proof of citizenship was required — you, too, could be suspect.
In the eyes of the GOP-run Arizona Legislature, that is.
Attorneys say the bill is likely unconstitutional
Doesn’t matter that legislative attorneys in both the House and Senate warned our leaders that the bill violates federal law. Doesn’t matter that the state will have to spend millions of dollars to defend it from the inevitable lawsuit.
Doesn’t even seem to matter that it may disenfranchise a sizable number of long-time voters unless they can now prove their citizenship.
House Bill 2492 passed the House and Senate on party-line votes and Gov. Doug Ducey signed it on Wednesday, proclaiming that no longtime Arizona voters will have to prove they are citizens, as some election activists and county election officials warn.
As if his word is law.
