In a major win for election integrity one day before Americans take to the polls, Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has lost an appeal over producing a list of hundreds of thousands of voters who registered without proving they are citizens of the United States:
The decision springs from an appeal of Thursday’s Arizona Supreme Court ruling ordering the state SoS’s office to release the list: (emphasis added)
The Arizona Supreme Court handed a sound defeat to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and a victory to the America First Legal Foundation and Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, known as “EZAZ.org.” The court ruled on Thursday that Fontes’ office is ordered to immediately provide a full list of all individuals who registered to vote in the state of Arizona without providing the proof of citizenship required under the law, a total of approximately 218,000 people as previously reported by AZ Free News.
The ruling obliterated Fontes’ response to EZAZ.org’s demand for transparency, which claimed, “We fear, especially based on SCF’s filings, that its true desire here is not to keep watch on government actions — which our public records laws are designed to facilitate — but instead harass and intimidate voters in the midst of an election and whose rights Secretary Fontes has already vindicated before Arizona’s highest court.”
There were several factors in the court rejecting the Secretary of State’s office appeal, including witness testimony that the court rejected as speculative and not based on research in the Copper state:
The court found that the testimony of Professor Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago who suggested with Fontes that “producing the list of 218,000 voters to EZAZ.org would expose those individuals to the risk of harassment and violence,” was “focused on political violence trends nationally and contained no analysis of such trends in Arizona.”
The court also found Pape’s credibility on a threat of political violence if the list were released to be lacking, as his research and testimony seemed full of “gratuitous political bias,” and it “only related to former president Donald Trump.” The ruling also pointed out that EZAZ.org “does not condone violent or harassing behavior and carefully screens its members”:
“The credibility of Professor Pape’s testimony and report was further diminished by what appeared to be gratuitous political bias in his report and in his testimony. The Professor’s opinions regarding general political violence focused almost entirely on allegations of past and anticipated prospective violence from only one side of the political spectrum, and only related to former president Donald Trump.”
The ruling concludes, “They failed to identify any specific threats of violence or harassment from EZAZ.org, and Ms. Hamilton’s unrebutted testimony established that EZAZ.org does not condone violent or harassing behavior and carefully screens its members and volunteers to ensure that persons who do condone or participate in such behavior do not participate in the organization.”
Here’s some context on the issue, with many longtime voters being flagged and originally unable to vote:
Monday’s ruling will aid in Arizona’s election being held as a fair and free one:
The post continues:
The Legislature will be able to have proper oversight over the election!
As this is a developing story, RedState will provide updates as they become available.
Read related: Awesome Win: Fed Judge Bars Lib AZ SoS Adrian Fontes’ Disastrous Election Rules, Compares Them to Nukes
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