Multiple Arizonans gathered outside of the capital Monday morning to invite Gov. Doug Ducey to stand with them and protect the permanent early voter list, or PEVL.
Ducey showed support in the past for PEVL on Twitter, when talking about the security of the state’s election process during the controversy of this past presidential election, but the GOP controlled state legislator is trying to get a bill passed that would remove people from this list and restrict the early voting process.
We’ve been doing early voting since 1992. Arizona didn’t explore or experiment this year. We didn’t cancel election day voting as some pushed for — we weren’t going to disenfranchise any voter. 2/
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) December 1, 2020
This bill plan is to remove around 200,000 from the permanent early voters list. The bill would also remove those who are on the list but have not voted in an election in the past two years. Currently, a voter is only removed from this list if their voter registration is canceled or made inactive.
Of the 4,300,058 registered voters in the state of Arizona, 3,448,181 were given a mail-in ballot to be cast early, which is about 80% of the registered voters.
“This is a mechanism that has been used for many many years, more than a decade, here in Arizona,” Democratic Rep. Raquel Terán said. “It’s safe. It’s how 80% of Arizonans choose to vote. And now my Republican colleagues want to purge it and eliminate people from that list and we need to make sure that to let the governor and everyone know this is an important way people are heard at the ballot box.”
The event opened with speeches from multiple speakers who expressed the importance of voting as well as their own personal experiences with being early voters and how important the option of early voting was to them.
“For me, voting by mail was a success, it was a big accomplishment. Last year I was able to vote by mail for the second time, but I got deactivated without knowing,” Francisca Gil, one of the speakers said. “Learning to navigate voting in this country is not an easy thing. When I see the list of bills attacking our right to vote it is very concerning.”
The group then made their way through security and into the capital where they were planning to hand an “I ❤️ PEVL” shirt to Ducey, but he did not come to get the shirt and a member of his staff came in his place. The staff member didn’t address the crowd or say anything, they simply took the shirt and stepped back into the elevator.
The crowd left the capital building, walked back to the rose garden at the capital and left from there after a brief moment of conversation. The event focused primarily on the importance of voting and the need for voting to not be a difficult process for Arizonans.
“We are against all of these bad bills that are coming out of the legislature because they are attacking our voting rights and suppressing our vote,” Gil said. “This is putting at risk our democracy. When we put barriers for people to participate instead of making it easier for people to vote we are putting at risk our democracy. When more people vote we are stronger.”
Contact the reporter at mdmarsh4@asu.edu.
