BREAKING: Judge Rules In Favor of Arizona's Early Voting Signature Verification Process and Drop Box Provisions

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club took their complaints about Arizona's processes for comparing early voting signatures and unstaffed drop boxes to Yavapai County in hopes of getting a favorable decision. It failed today.

Superior Court Judge John Napper denied the Plaintiffs' Motions for Summary Judgment and granted the MSJs filed by the Secretary of State and intervenors. This ends the case short of a trial.

The dark money organization challenged the process outlined in both the previous and current Elections Procedures Manual of matching the signature on an early ballot envelope to one of multiple examples in the voter's registration record. (The alternative would be comparing it to only the original voter registration form signature.) AZFEC also claimed that  drop boxes for early ballots could only be inside offices or actively monitored 24/7.

Judge Napper reviewed the EPM processes with the new statutes recently passed by the state Legislature, and found that the lawmakers had blessed the EPM's provisions. For example:

The Judge similarly found that "the Legislature has not required that these drop-boxes always be monitored. The decision to use staffed but unmonitored drop-boxes is within the discretion of the Secretary."

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