On Monday Reporter Jordan Conradson was at the Arizona Capitol to speak with legislators about the new election integrity bills, HB2794, and HB2792.
HB2794 was signed into law on the weekend and HB2792 will be voted on in the Senate today.
Conradson spoke with outspoken Rep. Jake Hoffman about these two bills.
Conradson: Can you tell me about the latest bill that just passed, 2794?
Hoffman: HB2794 is an election integrity bill and it bans modifying or agreeing to modify statutorily prescribed election dates and deadlines, and it adds a class 6 felony for violating that statute. Now, this is important because the legislature, under The Constitution of The United States is given authority over the administration and management of elections. And so, when the legislature sets a date or a deadline such as a voter registration deadline or the timestamp for when ballots have to be in by, 7 PM, for example, the legislature retains authority over that and no elected official whether it County Recorder or an SOS should be able to modify that willy nilly, or be able to modify it through what’s called sue and settle, which is a tactic used by Democrats to force elected officials into changing statutorily prescribed law.
Conradson: Wow. I remember in the 2020 election cycle, they pushed back the registration cycle by about a month when Republicans were far past Democrats in new voter registrations. Is that correct?
Hoffman: They did. So it was less than a month, it was actually 10 days. In Arizona during the 2020 election, Katie Hobbs, who is a radical Democrat serving as the SOS agreed in what’s called a sue and settle scenario with an out-of-state New York-based law firm. She agreed to extend the voter registration period for approximately 10 days. Now, during the 5 days that it was open before the court shut that down on appeal, Republicans did gain the advantage. But look, election integrity isn’t about Republicans, it isn’t about Democrats. It’s about doing what’s right on behalf of the people that we represent and so regardless of the fact that we as Republicans gained the advantage during that period, we said no to that practice and shut it down.
Conradson: Can you tell me about the current bill that is being voted on?
Hoffman: HB2792 is currently being voted on in the Arizona Senate today, and is expected to pass, fingers crossed. And that bans the mass mailing of ballots to voters that didn’t request it. This was another highly concerning trend that we saw all across the country where election officials just mass mailed ballots to voters, even though they didn’t ask for one. And so, Arizona is saying “absolutely not” to that and we’re adding a class 5 felony so that there is a very stiff penalty if an election official decides to go rogue and willfully violate the law.
Conradson: I’m hearing from left-wing media, activist media, and all the Democrats that this is voter suppression. What do you think of that?
Hoffman: I think it’s absolutely false. I think it borders on a conspiracy theory by the Democrats to think that a bill that ensures integrity for all parties, for Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Green Party, you name it. To think that that somehow suppresses the vote or disenfranchises voters is simply false and fictitious and quite honestly they should be ashamed of themselves for spinning such wild conspiracy theories.
Radical Democrats like Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and those in the liberal media are spreading outright lies about these bills, which prevent Democrats and their supporters from cheating. What does a New York-based law firm have to gain from pushing back Arizona’s deadlines? Why did Hobbs cave into their demands?
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