Protecting Our Right to Vote

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Fueled by lies and conspiracy theories, Republican legislators are doing everything they can to undermine our democracy. 

As a voting rights advocate at the Arizona Advocacy Network, I spend every day fighting against these attacks on our voting rights. And now, I’m ready to take the fight to the next level as your state representative. 

In office, I would introduce the Arizona Voters Bill of Rights—a landmark piece of legislation to strengthen our democracy and expand voting rights. 

Here’s what the Arizona Voters Bill of Rights would do: 

• Make Election Day a state holiday: By making Election Day a holiday, we can help ensure that voters who can’t take time off work to cast their ballots—a problem that disproportionately affects Black, Latinx and lower-income voters—have time to head to the polls.
• Institute an automatic voter registration system: This legislation would create a new voter registration system that ensures all eligible voters are automatically registered to vote, and that voters’ registration is automatically updated when they move. 
• Expand in person early voting: This legislation would provide for 21 days of early voting and ensure counties keep early voting centers open the three days before election day⁠—a practice which is currently prohibited.
• Restore the right to vote for people with felony records: This legislation would restore the voting rights of all persons convicted of felonies once they are discharged from prison, and would automatically register those voters. Because the right to vote must not be contingent upon a person's wealth, all citizens with felony records would be automatically registered to vote, regardless of unpaid fees and fines. 
• Strengthen Arizona’s vote-by-mail system: This provision would allow county recorders to mail every voter in their county a mail-in ballot, which would expand voting rights and make it easier for voters to make their voices heard. It would also reverse the legislature's recent laws that purge voters off the vote-by-mail list.
• Enable same-day voter registration: The Arizona Voters Bill of Rights would end arbitrary and unnecessary voter registration deadlines. It would allow eligible voters to register⁠—or update their registration⁠—until and on Election Day. 
• Ensuring the voting rights of Tribal voters: Tribal lands tend to be large and less dense than urban areas, meaning polling places are often far and can be hard to access for many people. That is why I would push for legislation requiring the Arizona Secretary of State to designate at least one polling place in every precinct on Tribal lands. I would also work to ensure that all IDs issued by a Tribal government are accepted forms of voter identification and to allow tribal members without a residential address or without stable mail delivery service to register, pick up and drop off their ballots at designated tribal buildings. The legislation would also establish an Indigenous Voting Rights Task Force, consisting of Tribal leaders and charged with recommending solutions to barriers to voting on Tribal land, such as lack of broadband access and the lack of mailing addresses. Finally, this legislation would prohibit states and counties from reducing, removing or consolidating voting access on Tribal land without first obtaining the consent of the  Indigenous Voting Rights Task Force. Finally, a 2016 GOP law made it a felony for anyone but immediate family, caregivers and household members from collecting and turning in ballots for anyone else. But many Native voters have have looser definitions of “family” than the law's current definition, putting Native people at risk of prosecution simply for helping their family members vote. I would work to repeal that law.