Constitutional modification would finish Election Day drop-offs, intestine lively early voter checklist for 80% of Arizonans.
By Caitlin Sievers for Arizona Mirror
Republican legislators who’ve pushed for excessive, unpopular and unrealistic election legislation adjustments in Arizona have a “top priority” within the coming 12 months that consultants say will make voting tougher for everybody.
The sweeping adjustments are wanted, proponents say, to get quicker outcomes and soothe the assumption amongst many conservatives that voting is rife with fraud, which has turn into dogma after practically a decade of Republican politicians more and more declaring elections are rigged once they lose.
Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Scottsdale Republican and member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, authored Home Concurrent Decision 2001, which might amend the Arizona Structure to dispose of the lively early voter checklist that robotically sends ballots to voters and reduce off early poll drop offs the Friday earlier than an election, amongst quite a few different adjustments. Kolodin is operating to be the state’s election chief in 2026, in hopes of profitable the Republican major to problem incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, subsequent November.
Antonio Ramirez, political and coverage director for advocacy group Rural Arizona Motion, advised the Arizona Mirror that Kolodin’s rationalization of why this laws is critical reminds him of the tales he heard as a child about Coyote, a mythological character frequent to many Indigenous cultures in America.
“Coyote is a trickster who uses deception to conceal his intentions, and Republicans say this bill is about security, but it’s not,” Ramirez stated. “It’s an attempt to change the rules because they can’t win fair elections.”
Kolodin, an lawyer, was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona in 2023 for his position in submitting the “kraken” lawsuit that made implausible and evidence-free claims of huge election fraud in 2020. Since he joined the Home of Representatives in 2023, Kolodin and different Republican members of the legislature’s elections committees have advocated for adjustments to Arizona’s election guidelines that are supposed to treatment points associated to supposed election fraud that they’ve by no means confirmed to exist.
Kolodin didn’t reply to a request for an interview.
“Arizonans are tired of excuses and chaos on Election Day,” Kolodin stated in an announcement. “The Arizona Secure Elections Act (HCR2001) gives voters clear rules, strong identification standards, and the confidence that only citizens are taking part in our elections. These are straightforward reforms that put voters first. They ensure our elections run on time, follow the law, and earn the public’s trust. I look forward to sending it to the ballot so the people of Arizona can make it the law.”
He and different Republicans who co-sponsored HCR 2001 have, for years, pushed to dispose of no-excuse early voting by mail — the way in which that greater than 75% of Arizonans forged their poll in every election — which was carried out by Republicans in 1991. They’ve additionally advocated for 1,000-person precincts that county elections officers say would value thousands and thousands for every election and be logistically inconceivable to implement.
Within the view of the Secretary of State’s Workplace, one broadly-worded provision of HCR2001 might be a technique to put these small precinct caps into place with out passing laws that spells out the adjustments that will drive Maricopa County alone to seek out 2,400 new voting areas and to rent greater than 17,000 extra ballot employees.
The decision says that “all qualified electors shall have the right to vote in-person on Election Day at conveniently located polling places,” however contains no definition of what “conveniently located” means.
“At best, this language would create a morass of multiple lawsuits,” Calli Jones, director of communications for Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, advised the Arizona Mirror. “At worst, this is a backdoor attempt to outlaw voting centers and force voters to use small (1,000-voter) polling places as was proposed in 2025.”
HCR2001 is an edited model of laws that Kolodin proposed final 12 months that aimed to make Arizona elections extra like Florida’s, a state identified for its fast posting of unofficial election outcomes.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, proven in October.
Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed that laws, Home Invoice 2703, after it handed by each the Senate and Home of Representatives with solely Republican assist. In her veto letter, Hobbs stated that she wouldn’t signal laws that made it tougher for Arizonans to vote, and criticized Republicans for his or her unwillingness to compromise.
Kolodin’s new proposal goes additional than the one Hobbs vetoed.
It might reduce off all early voting at 7 p.m. the Friday earlier than every election, in comparison with final 12 months’s invoice that allowed early ballots to be dropped at county recorder’s places of work or drop containers by the tip of voting on Election Day. At present, early ballots could be dropped off at any polling tempo or poll drop field by the shut of polls.
Greater than 264,000 Arizonans — practically 8% of voters who forged a poll — dropped off their early ballots at a polling place on Election Day in 2024, based on the Secretary of State’s Workplace. Tens of 1000’s extra dropped off their ballots the previous Saturday, Sunday or Monday.
Arizona’s most rural voters, together with those that reside in distant elements of the Navajo Nation and different tribal lands, will likely be disproportionately impacted by the early poll cutoff, stated Ramirez, who has lived on each the Hopi reservation and the Navajo Nation.
In some rural areas, however particularly on tribal reservations, some houses don’t have avenue addresses, and the voters who reside there obtain their mail at put up workplace containers which are continuously greater than a 30-minute drive from their houses.
On high of that, mail supply in rural areas is commonly delayed, already leaving them with much less time to fill out and return their ballots than their city counterparts. Kolodin’s proposal would shrink that point even additional.
“Rural voters who work weekends, who can’t make the Friday deadline, are going to lose their right to vote,” Ramirez stated. “This is targeted disenfranchisement.”
Whereas rural Arizona is mostly closely Republican, that’s not the case on tribal land, the place voters are overwhelmingly Democratic.
The constitutional amendments embody no funding for communication with voters about what could be a large shift in poll drop-off deadlines.
“This would be the most restrictive early vote deadline in the country if passed in its current form, essentially outlawing all emergency voting the weekend prior to Election Day,” Jones stated.
Kolodin has stated the early voting cut-off is supposed to handle the sluggish reporting of election ends in Arizona that’s fueled by the tons of of 1000’s of early ballots dropped off on Election Day that later should be signature-verified and tabulated, a time-consuming course of. Kolodin and different Republicans have stated that “delayed results” have fueled rumors of election fraud — claims that they’ve themselves amplified, regardless of there being no proof.
Arizona has reported its full outcomes a mean of 13 days after the election for the previous 20 years, although the end result of most races has been clear lengthy earlier than the ultimate tally is full.
Republicans started specializing in the time it takes to complete counting ballots when Democrats started profitable statewide races in Arizona and the state grew to become a swing state.
Kolodin repeatedly claimed throughout hearings on election-related laws earlier this 12 months that, based on polling, a “supermajority of voters” supported all the election adjustments that Republicans had proposed of their earlier Florida-style election invoice. That features reducing off late earlies to offer faster election outcomes.
A girl reveals off her “I Voted” sticker as she waits for outcomes of the Navajo Nation presidential major election to be revealed in 2018.
However Kolodin refused to say who really performed the ballot or who commissioned it, a lot much less present the polling itself. As a substitute he learn the questions, outcomes and methodology aloud over the cellphone when the Arizona Mirror questioned him on the polling he cited earlier this 12 months.
“I’m not not sharing that. It doesn’t matter if you have the methodology,” he insisted.
A extra clear ballot discovered the alternative.
In response to an August 2024 survey by the nonpartisan and nonprofit Middle for the Way forward for Arizona — with questions methodology and outcomes listed on-line — 63% of voters “believe we should encourage voter participation and continue to make it easy to vote over having election results sooner.”
The ballot, performed by Highground Public Affairs, surveyed 500 possible voters from throughout Arizona: 34% Democrats, 38% Republicans and 28% impartial voters. The survey had a margin of error of +-4%.
The specifics
Kolodin’s new decision, pre-filed final week forward of the 2026 Arizona legislative session that begins Jan. 12, places much more limits on early voting than its predecessor. And if voters approve it, the adjustments it makes could be practically inconceivable to claw again. HCR 2001, like final 12 months’s decision, would bypass a veto from Hobbs if it wins approval by majorities in each chambers of the legislature — however in contrast to the failed one, the brand new decision would amend the Arizona Structure as a substitute of state legislation.
State legislation can typically be amended by easy legislative majorities, together with a signature from the governor. However adjustments to the structure should be accepted by voters, a a lot larger bar that would show problematic if the election legislation adjustments in HCR2001 have unintended penalties, or make adjustments that voters in the end don’t like.
After their authentic Florida-style voting invoice was vetoed final 12 months, Republicans tried to ship an analogous decision to voters to bypass Hobbs, however it failed within the Senate when a mixture of Republicans and Democrats voted towards it. Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, who sponsored a mirror decision to HCR2001 within the Senate forward of the 2026 legislative session, was certainly one of a handful of Republicans who voted towards the decision final 12 months, after she stated she was shut out of the modification course of.
What concessions?
Kolodin’s proposed constitutional amendments reduce out most of the concessions that Republicans made to their Florida-style voting laws in the course of the 2025 legislative session. These adjustments got here on the behest of rural county recorders who stated some provisions could be inconceivable for them to implement and would make voting tougher for individuals of their communities.
In final 12 months’s invoice, counties with fewer than 500,000 residents solely needed to ask their voters to confirm their handle to be mailed an early poll each two election cycles, whereas the state’s extra populous counties would have to take action each election cycle.
The much less frequent verifications had been a concession to rural county recorders, some who’ve a workers of solely 4 individuals, and stated that verifying each election cycle could be inconceivable.
The brand new decision would require voters on the Lively Early Voter Record — who obtain a poll within the mail robotically — to verify their handle every election cycle or be booted off the checklist, whatever the county they reside in.
“This would effectively gut the mail-in voting structure roughly 80% of Arizonans have relied on for years,” Jones stated.
Storm clouds kind on Freeway 264 on the outskirts of Tuba Metropolis, Arizona, in 2024.
Broad language
Though Kolodin and Sen. Jake Hoffman, the chief of the Arizona Freedom Caucus who can also be backing HCR2001, have beforehand espoused the significance of fastidiously wording constitutional amendments due to how troublesome it’s to alter them, the language of the decision is extremely broad.
Along with the imprecise provision about handy voting areas, the decision would require voters to current government-issued identification “concurrent with casting a ballot,” however doesn’t clarify how that will work with mail-in voting, which makes use of signature verification to confirm voters’ identities.
Jones stated that language “could be interpreted as to require voters to include photocopies of their driver’s license in their mail-in ballot envelope.”
Arizona voters in 2022 rejected Proposition 309, which might have required mail-in voters to incorporate a voter ID quantity and their birthdate once they returned their poll, which consultants predicted would have led to some 400,000 Arizonans having their ballots rejected.
One other imprecise provision of HCR2001 says “votes shall not be cast or accepted after poll closing times on general Election Day, as designated by law.”
Arizona doesn’t rely mail-in ballots acquired after polls shut on Election Day, however it does enable individuals who had been already in line when polls near forged their poll. Most states have related provisions.
“At face value, the language is unclear to the point where it could be interpreted as cutting off the ability to cast a ballot from those already in line by 7pm,” Jones stated.
Already within the legislation
HCR2001 additionally would add issues to the structure which are already a part of Arizona legislation.
That features requiring voters to show their U.S. citizenship earlier than registering to vote. Each the Arizona and U.S. constitutions require voters to be U.S. residents.
However Arizona has a uniquely bifurcated voter registration system stemming from a 2004 voter-approved legislation requiring residents to indicate proof of citizenship to register to vote. That legislation was challenged in courtroom, and the U.S. Supreme Court docket in the end concluded in 2013 that the state can’t mandate proof of eligibility in federal elections past an oath on federal kinds underneath the Nationwide Voting Rights Act.
Because of each the federal and state legal guidelines, voters who show their citizenship can vote in each race in Arizona, whereas those that don’t — however attest to being residents underneath penalty of perjury — can solely vote in federal contests.
Round 32,000 Arizona voters are registered as “federal only.” In 2022, Republicans within the legislature, together with then-Gov. Doug Ducey handed legal guidelines that aimed to require these voters to offer documentary proof of citizenship to vote by mail and in presidential elections. The ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals struck down these provisions in February.
Ramirez known as on each Republicans and Democrats within the Legislature to talk out and vote towards HCR2001.
“This is about power,” he stated. “It’s not about security.”
