How Trump's mail voting order could affect Arizona voters
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Arizona is again in the crosshairs of President Trump's mission to nationalize elections and limit voting by mail.
Why it matters: The vast majority of Arizonans cast mail ballots, and critics say Trump's latest move would disenfranchise some of those voters ahead of a crucial November election in the battleground state.
Catch up quick: Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order requiring the U.S. Postal Service to check a voter's registration against a federal list before mailing ballots.
- The order says this is necessary to reduce fraud, something Trump has insisted, without evidence, runs rampant in vote-by-mail systems nationwide.
The other side: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes decried the order as unlawful and fellow Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes quickly announced that he was working with her on a legal challenge.
- "The President is not trying to improve election security, he is trying to control who gets to vote," said Mayes, noting that more than 80% of Arizonans vote by mail and that the system has been used safely for decades.
Between the lines: Fontes said the federal voter database is flawed and doesn't accurately reflect all documented proof of citizenship.
- The Trump administration is currently suing Arizona for Fontes' refusal to hand over the state's complete voter registration database as requested.
The intrigue: It was a Republican Legislature and governor who in 1991 enacted the law allowing Arizonans to vote by absentee ballot for any reason.
- And the Republican-controlled Legislature, along with a Democratic governor, created the Permanent Early Voting List in 2007, ushering in the modern era of early voting.
- Early voting became a partisan dividing line during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump began baselessly claiming that mail-in voting was rife with fraud.
Gov. Katie Hobbs, who previously served as secretary of state, emphasized that mail-in voting has had bipartisan support in Arizona for decades, both in terms of politicians supporting the policy and voters using it to cast ballots.
- "This would be really detrimental to Arizona voters and to politicians on the ballot in both parties," she told reporters on Wednesday.
- Hobbs called the executive order unconstitutional and a "giant federal overreach into our elections."