PHOENIX — Claiming disenfranchisement of a “substantial” number of voters, the Arizona Democratic Party wants U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan to order election officials to reopen the registration rolls.
Attorneys for the party contend Secretary of State Michele Reagan acted illegally in refusing to direct county election officials to extend the deadline through Oct. 11.
The actual deadline set by statute is 29 days before the Nov. 8 election. That fell on Oct. 10.
That day, however, was both a state and federal holiday.
While offices in 14 of the state’s 15 counties were open anyway, the party’s lawyers point out that other last-minute registration options were not available. That includes going to an office of the state Motor Vehicle Division or dropping a registration form into a post office box and getting it postmarked by that Oct. 10 deadline.
Reagan, the state’s chief elections officer, refused to direct counties to allow an extra day. And Assistant Attorney General Dominic Draye rebuffed a request by House Minority Leaders Eric Meyer that his office order Reagan to change her mind.
In his letter to Meyer, Draye conceded there is a state law that says when certain deadlines fall on a holiday it can be moved to the next day. But Draye also cited a 1968 Arizona Supreme Court ruling which says that election statutes have to be interpreted literally “even where a strict interpretation led to a Sunday deadline for ballot delivery.”
Draye said that “lack of clarity in the law leaves room for the exercise of discretion on the part of the secretary of state,” a discretion he said his office “will support and defend.”
He will now get that chance: Logan has scheduled a hearing for later today on the issue.
Sambo Dul, an attorney for the party, cited an opinion issued in 1958 by Robert Morrison, then the state attorney general, which specifically addressed the question of what happens when the voter registration deadline falls on a holiday.
“The registration of electors is not a work of necessity or charity but rather the performance of an act of a secular nature, which may be performed on the next ensuing business day with effect as though performed on the appointed day,” Morrison wrote.
But Morrison also said that if a county office is open on the deadline day, then the deadline remains; if it is closed, then the deadline moves to the next business day.
Only Mohave County shut its doors on that day, with election officials there agreeing to accept registrations through Oct. 11. The other 14 counties remained open despite the state holiday, having traded the day off for the Friday after Thanksgiving.
But Spencer Scharff, the party’s Voter Protection Director, said other problems remain with that Oct. 10 deadline.
Scharff said the National Voter Registration Act forbids deadlines greater than 30 days before an election. He said that with MVD and post offices closed both Sunday and Monday, that effectively made the deadline Saturday, Oct. 8 — or maybe even Friday, Oct. 7 — clearly putting the state out of compliance.
There also are claims the Oct. 10 deadline imposed by Reagan violates federal constitutional provisions.
The lawsuit essentially asks Logan to require counties to accept the registrations of those who submitted them on Oct. 11, whether in person, by mail or any other method. Scharff said the Arizona Democratic Party, which is empowered to accept registration, had several submitted that day which it turned over to the proper county officials only to be rejected.
He said it is irrelevant that only a handful of individuals might have been disqualified.
“One would be one too many,” he said.
Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts, who has previously defended the strict reading of the deadline, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
