PHOENIX, AZ – According to reports [1], Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the Arizona Republican Party’s suit to dial back “no-excuse” mail-in voting and eliminate ballot drop boxes.
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For those unaware, an aptly dubbed “high profile case,” according to the AZ Courts’ official website [3], was filed in the state supreme court on February 25th where the Arizona Republican Party is pushing back on the COVID-era popularized style of voting via mass mail-in ballots and drop boxes.
In “AZ REPUBLICAN PARTY et al v KATIE HOBBS et al [4],” three general arguments against the aforementioned grievance are presented.
- Signature Verification Guidelines Must Be Included in the Elections Procedures Manual
- The Secretary (Katie Hobbs) May Not Authorize Voting Via Drop-boxes
- No-excuse Mail-in (or “Early” or “Absentee”) Voting Is Unconstitutional, Either in Whole or in Part; Alternatively, It Must Be Narrowly Construed to Conform to the Arizona Constitution
The first first of the two presented arguments are pretty straightforward, and thus needn’t much context to digest, but the third in itself betrays the matter is a bit more nuanced and can be subject to any number of interpretations.
Attorneys involved in the suit are essentially arguing that the usage of the term “at the polls” in Article 4 Part 1 Section 1 of Arizona’s constitution [5] implies that voters are only to vote “at the polls.” This sort of interpretation is likely to be heavily debated during the course of the suit.
On March 9th, gubernatorial candidate Lake filed what’s known as a amicus curiae brief in support of the AZ GOP’s suit, which roughly translates to “friend of the court.”
This sort of brief is filed when a non-party of the case, in this instance being Lake, wants the court to consider their perspective on a given case before a decision is reached.
In the amicus curiae brief filed by Lake, she raised her concerns about excessive mail-in voting, highlighting that she believes it to run afoul of the Arizona constitution.
“Amicus Curiae Kari Lake requests that this Court grant the Petition for Review and grant the relief requested. No-excuse mail-in voting is not consistent with the Arizona Constitution and its requirements for ballot secrecy and voting on a single Election Day.
“If the voters of this state want to amend the Arizona Constitution, they may do so upon proper exercise of the right to initiative or legislative referral. But they must be the ones to do it. Simply because some find mail-in voting more convenient is no reason to dispense with the Constitution. And Arizona voters would be amending the Constitution with full knowledge of the problems created by no-excuse mail-in voting, as was on very vivid display in the 2020 election.”