Yesterday, in response to letters sent by a coalition of Arizona groups, Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes announced that he has agreed to adopt and implement a new early-ballot signature policy. This new policy will permit all voters to cure problems with their signature, even those whose ballots are received on or just before Election Day. If a mismatched signature problem is not identified by officials or resolved prior to the close of polls on Election Day, those early ballots will be treated as conditional provisional ballots. All ballots must be received by 7 pm on Election Day to be afforded this opportunity. Recorder Fontes’s office will provide notice to all affected and voters will have up to five business days to confirm their signatures.

Now, in at least Maricopa, Coconino, and Pima counties, voters can correct signature mismatch errors by contacting their recorder in the days following the election. Voters who have cast early ballots should track the status of their early ballot online at this website.

The Campaign Legal Center, ACLU, ACLU of Arizona, and Scharff PLC worked to reach this agreement on behalf of a coalition of Arizona groups: League of United Latin American Citizens-Arizona, Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, League of Women Voters-Arizona, and All Voting is Local-Arizona.

The lawyers assisting the coalition released the following statement:

“We are pleased that voters in Arizona’s three counties—including the two most populous counties in Arizona—will not have their absentee ballots rejected because officials are not ‘satisfied’ that the signature on the ballot matched the voter’s registration signature. These counties are leading the way to ensure that Arizona voters get due process by giving all voters a chance to confirm their signature. We hope that other counties follow suit and the Secretary of State will finally issue concrete guidance on this issue. We look forward to working with Recorder Fontes going forward and monitoring the details of the policy as it it’s finalized next week.”

A recent ruling in Georgia should send a clear message to Arizona that its signature matching policies are unconstitutional.

WASHINGTON – Mail-in ballots in Arizona now account for nearly three-quarters of the total ballots cast. But not all those ballots will be counted. In 2016, 2,657 of those ballots were rejected because election officials were not “satisfied” that the signature on the ballot matched the voter’s registration signature. Many of those voters were not even told that their vote was rejected until after Election Day, if at all.

Counties must ensure that all mail-in voters are given notice and an opportunity to confirm their signature before their ballot is rejected.  But, in fact, all counties except Pima simply reject ballots with perceived mismatches that they receive on or near Election Day, in violation of voters’ constitutional rights to due process.

Yesterday, a federal court in Georgia held unconstitutional similar signature matching practices. The court ordered election officials to provide all absentee voters with due process before rejecting their ballot. The decision should send a clear message to Arizona that its policies fall short of adequately protecting Arizonan voters.

On October 22, CLC, ACLU, and ACLU of Arizona sent a letter on behalf of a coalition of Arizona groups: League of United Latin American Citizens-Arizona, Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, League of Women Voters-Arizona, and All Voting is Local-Arizona. Today, the groups sent a follow-up letter advising Arizona officials of yesterday’s Georgia ruling and demanding a solution.

“Given the popularity of voting by mail in Arizona, processing mail-in ballots properly is critical,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel at CLC. “Votes must not be rejected without due process. Secretary Reagan should issue immediate guidance to county recorders statewide requiring that all voters with ballots flagged for ‘mismatched’ signatures receive notice and an opportunity to confirm their signature before having their ballots rejected.”

“Arizona voters deserve to know with certainty their votes will be counted when they submit their mail-in ballot,” said Darrell Hill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Arizona. “The Secretary of State and county recorders should use the processes already in place, as the Pima County Recorder currently does, to notify voters if their ballot envelope signature does not appear to match the signature on file, and give these voters an opportunity to confirm their signature instead of rejecting their ballot.”

"Arizona should protect voters, not undermine them. Instead, signature-matching is used as another way to make voting more difficult. County recorders have the authority to let voters resolve signature issues, and are simply refusing to do so," said Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Right Project.

"The Constitution requires Arizona's elections officials to afford the same opportunities to all eligible voters. Doing so here would not entail significant administrative burdens. Rather, election officials would simply need to refine their existing practices, which already permit certain voters to cure issues with their early ballot signatures,” said Spencer Scharff, a Phoenix lawyer advising the coalition.

WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley violated federal campaign finance law by illegally coordinating nearly $1 million in spending.

The evidence indicates that the NRA routed nearly $1 million in spending supporting Hawley’s campaign through an apparent shell corporation established by Hawley’s top campaign consultant. Additionally, in at least one instance, an official at the same media company placed the NRA’s pro-Hawley ads and the Hawley campaign’s own ads on the same stations and on the same day.

“The evidence indicates that the NRA routed nearly $1 million through shell corporations to unlawfully coordinate with the Hawley campaign,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal reform program at CLC. “Groups like the NRA can only make unlimited expenditures if they are independent of the candidates they support, and it falls to the FEC to enforce the laws that preserve that independence and prevent corruption.”

“The NRA is at it again,” said David Pucino, a staff attorney at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “As these apparent campaign finance violations accumulate, one has to wonder why the NRA continues to use these tactics. Maybe it’s because they know that a majority of Americans oppose their radical agenda. Maybe they just don’t care about the rule of law. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that the FEC must investigate.”

Campaign finance law prohibits coordination between candidates and outside groups like the NRA. In order to preserve their independence, FEC rules limit how a vendor may work for both a candidate and an outside group supporting that candidate, to prevent the vendor from being used as a conduit for coordination.

Earlier this year, Politico Magazine uncovered that the directors at OnMessage – a consulting firm led by Hawley’s campaign consultant, Brad Todd – created a shell corporation called Starboard, located at the same address, and which appears indistinguishable from its parent company. Candidates would then hire OnMessage, and the NRA would contract with Starboard to create ads supporting those candidates. Hawley’s top consultant, Todd, is on the board of both OnMessage and Starboard.

In addition to the NRA and Hawley campaign using OnMessage/Starboard to create advertisements, the NRA and Hawley also appear to be using a shared set of vendors to place those advertisements, providing further evidence of coordination. According to FEC and FCC records, the NRA’s pro-Hawley communications were distributed and placed by employees of the firm “National Media” under a trade name, while the Hawley campaign placed its own ads using National Media or an affiliate. In at least one instance, the same National Media official placed advertisements on behalf of both the NRA and Josh Hawley for Senate on the same stations and on the same day.

More than 500 affected Nevada voters have been added to the rolls for November elections as a result of this effort

LAS VEGAS, NV – Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has come to an agreement with Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s office and the Clark County registrar after the county was denying voter registration applications due to an unlawful paperwork requirement, asking eligible voters to unearth decades-old discharge papers in order to register to vote. In a memo sent to Nevada counties by Deputy Secretary for Elections Wayne Thorley, the state clarified that eligible voters who complete the registration process by signing a declaration form affirming the restoration of their voting rights after a conviction are eligible to vote normally on Election Day. Clark County has added more than 500 Nevada citizens whose registrations were denied to the rolls. The Secretary of State’s memo recommended that all other counties also take this crucial step to ensure no eligible voter is wrongly denied the right to vote in 2018.

“Nevada voters should not be disenfranchised due to an unnecessary paperwork requirement,” said Blair Bowie, legal fellow at CLC. “We are pleased that the Nevada Secretary of State and Clark County registrar worked with us to resolve this issue amicably, so that the voters could be reinstated in time for the November elections. It is critical that Nevadans and voters around the country receive accurate information about their state’s voting rights restoration requirements.”

This comes after Nevada has agreed to do four things to clarify voter registration processes for people with past convictions.

CLC has further worked to simplify the rights restoration process for people with past convictions, releasing a fact sheet that answers common questions about Nevada law.