Hobbs vetoes more changes to handling of Arizona elections

PHOENIX — Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two measures that directly relate to issues raised in Kari Lake’s ongoing challenge of her election win.

Hobbs rejected House Bill 2305, which would have ensured that representatives of both major political parties could challenge decisions made by election workers determining whether a signature on an early ballot was valid.

While it would have affected only future elections, it paralleled Lake’s bid to overturn the results of the 2022 governor’s race.

Lake, the Republican who lost to Democrat Hobbs by 17,117 votes in November, claims Maricopa County election workers verified invalid signatures. Current law does not permit political party observers who believe a signature does not match to force it to be reviewed by anyone other than the election worker.

Separately, Hobbs vetoed a measure to force her successors as secretary of state to not perform any duties in that role in a race in which their name is on the ballot.

That follows arguments by Republicans that the secretary of state, as the state’s chief elections officer, has an inherent conflict of interest. Lake charged that Hobbs, who was secretary of state until the end of last year, used her office to force supervisors in several counties to certify election results they had questioned. Courts upheld Hobbs’ actions.

The two vetoes Friday were among 14 measures approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature that Hobbs found unacceptable and nixed that day. That brings her total up to 86 vetoes since the legislative session began in January.

Signature verification

More than a handful of Hobbs’ vetoes have involved changes in election laws. Rejected measures included making it easier to remove people from the active early voting list if they don’t use it every election cycle, requiring all parts of election equipment to be manufactured and fabricated in the United States and codifying the standards for signature verification on early ballot envelopes.

Hobbs’ veto of HB 2305 on greater oversight of the signature review process relates to the last issue.

“What we have seen with most of the elections we have had recently is a growing distrust from ordinary, regular people, not hyperpartisan, where the outcome for them becomes in question,’’ Rep. Cory McGarr, R-Marana, told colleagues in pushing his legislation.

“There’s a severe lack of trust that can grow when you see an instance where someone literally draws a snowman and then that snowman passes as a signature when you see that signature right next to it,’’ he said, though McGarr did not say where he saw that image. “And so you can have instances where the public begins to doubt the circumstances of the voting process.’’

Maricopa County officials dispute such claims. They said while a signature on a ballot envelope may not appear to match a voter’s registration form, their reviewers have multiple other examples of a voter’s signature to use for comparison purposes.

And as a last resort, election workers in all counties can try to contact the voter to see if the person whose name is on the envelope is the person who sent in the ballot.

Lake has claimed for months that her loss was tainted by mismatched signatures.

At last week’s trial on her claim, however, Lake’s attorneys did not present examples. That’s because her case is based not on specific bad signatures but on the larger contention it was not possible for election workers to have properly reviewed and verified them in the time taken. Lake’s legal team said more than 240,000 signatures were verified in fewer than three seconds.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson is deciding whether that claim has any validity. The witness Lake’s team hired as a witness used a report that was never admitted into evidence during the trial.

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Burdens, privacy concerns

Hobbs, in her veto message, addressed none of that.

She said HB 2305 “creates unnecessary burdens for election administrators.’’

She also said there are “meaningful privacy concerns for Arizona voters.’’

The measure was amended before it reached Hobbs to prohibit the observers that McGarr’s bill would have allowed from noting, transcribing or disclosing the personal information they see, ranging from dates and places of birth to phone numbers, driver’s license numbers and a mother’s maiden name. But gubernatorial press aide Christian Slater, in explaining the veto, said that wasn’t enough to satisfy Hobbs.

“We believe the bill still contains privacy concerns, even after the amendment,’’ he said.

Doing the job impartially

Hobbs’ other election-related veto involved the role of secretaries of state.

HB 2308 was sponsored by Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson. It sought to bar the secretary of state from personally performing any aspect of operations in an election in which that person is a candidate for office.

The 2022 election was clearly on Jones’ mind. “I think the optics of that, of a secretary of state running their own election for governor and then certifying that election, was a major concern to some of my constituents,’’ she said.

Jones acknowledged that the Republican-controlled Legislature never pursued similar measures when Hobbs’ predecessors — all Republicans going back to 1995 — were running either for reelection or a higher office. Her proposal comes as the current secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, is a Democrat.

But Jones said those were different times.

“I think the environment then, I don’t think it had become such a topic of conversation until after 2020,’’ she said, when Donald Trump lost Arizona’s 11 electoral votes for president to Joe Biden. “There is a lack of confidence, all in all, in our election process,’’ Jones said.

During the 2022 race, Lake and other Republicans had called for Hobbs to voluntarily recuse herself. She declined. “This has never been an issue until now,’’ Hobbs said then. “And I’m not going to recuse myself from the job that voters elected me to do.’’

In her veto message, the governor said the position is elected and that the duties make the secretary of state Arizona’s chief election officer.

“There is no reasonable basis to believe that Arizonans should not trust the secretary of state to do their job impartially,’’ Hobbs wrote.