PHOENIX (CN) - Arizona's Senate Elections Committee moved to support a handful of bills that would increase public access to voter records, though Democrats say the measures would lead to safety concerns by publishing personal voter information. 

The elections committee, chaired by Flagstaff Republican Wendy Rogers, voted 4-2 to pass two elections transparency bills. Senate Bill 1038 would require a county recorder to make publicly available the full, unredacted vote cast record after an election. Senate Bill 1040 would require the full, unredacted voter registration roll to be made downloadable via an internet portal. 

In July, a state judge ruled that full vote cast records are not public records according to current law.

"This just adds to the opportunity for transparency," bill sponsor Mark Finchem of Phoenix said while voting in favor of SB1038. "It offers the opportunity for people to check their own ballot."

The bill requires the recorder to make the vote cast records public within one hour of the polls closing and transmit the file to the secretary of state within 48 hours of the final canvass. 

Democratic state Senator Lauren Kuby of Scottsdale said the file would be too big to share so quickly.

"It's absurd, and it can't possibly be done," she said to the committee. 

The bill also mandates that full names, voter identification numbers and political party registrations be included with each cast vote. Kuby said she worries making that information public will encourage independent actors to "track down voters" and harass them before the ballots are cured and the results are certified. 

Arizona Republicans sent an identical bill to the governor's office last year, but Democrat Katie Hobbs vetoed it. 

"Just because a bill got vetoed last year doesn't mean we're not gonna run it again and again and again," state Senator Rogers said. "We're going to continue to bring up those issues because the people want us to represent them."

Arizona's voter roll, a list of all registered voters in the state, is already available via public records request, albeit with sensitive personal information redacted. Finchem's SB1040 would remove those redaction requirements and make publicly available personal voter information, including Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and mothers' maiden names.

"I have serious security concerns," Kuby said, voting against the bill. 

Like the previous bill, Finchem said the measure is about transparency. He added that because no lobbyists from the Arizona Association of Counties came to speak against the bill, he assumes the coalition of governments has no objections. 

Kuby clarified that the association hasn't yet conducted its first meeting of the year, in which it would conduct its own votes on all pending bills relating to county governance. 

Finchem amended the bill to ensure that the downloadable file is uneditable by the general public. 

Arizona's voter rolls have remained a flashpoint of election integrity debates since election fraud conspiracy theories were first popularised by Donald Trump in 2020. Recently, the Department of Justice sued the state, demanding that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes turn the unredacted roll over to the federal government. 

Fontes, a Democrat, says doing so would violate both state and federal laws. 

The committee also voted to support Finchem's Senate Bill 1057, which would require paper ballots be outfitted with watermarks to prevent fraud. Hobbs vetoed the same bill last year.

Kuby said the measure would increase ballot printing costs with no guarantee that it would improve election security. Nevertheless, the Republican-dominated committee voted 4-2 to approve it. 

Finally, the committee voted 4-3 to support Republican state Senator John Kavanagh's Senate Bill 1003, which would change the language of Arizona statute regarding election results to require county supervisors to "acknowledge without prejudice" final results, rather than "canvass."

The term canvass, a nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of county supervisors, is often used interchangeably with certification, a separate process in which the secretary of state compiles and affirms all county results. Kavanaugh said supervisors can't "certify" the results of an election they themselves didn't operate. 

"None of these people have any idea whether the election results are accurate," the Republican from Fountain Hills said. "Let them simply say 'I acknowledge this without prejudice.' It's the honest thing to do.

In 2022, two supervisors from Cochise County were indicted on felony charges for refusing to complete the county canvass by the required date and send the results to Phoenix for certification. Since then, state officials have tried to make it harder for supervisors to refuse that duty. 

"Suppose they had a good reason to think the election was bad," Kavanaugh said. "They still have to do it under threat of indictment."

Kuby said the canvass is only intended to ensure all votes are counted and that material challenges to the results can already be made in a later process after certification. 

Kavanaugh suggested that Democrats know the measure is reasonable, but rather fear the optics of aligning with "election deniers."

Source: Courthouse News Service