Save Arizona From the SAVE Act

Save Arizona from The SAVE Act

Washington has made its plans clear: they intend to make the election outcome whatever serves their purpose. The SAVE Act would add voter ID rules our state already follows. They keep trying to take away mail-in voting. The administration wants to send federal agents to polling places with power to challenge voters based on suspicion, not proof. Add this to the already long history of voting suppression schemes and we cannot pretend they will not use every trick in the book to ensure their victory.

If our state leaders do nothing, we will pay the price.

We Have Seen Attacks on Elections Before

The same people now saying they want to "fix" elections are the ones who spent years trying to break them. After Arizonans voted for Joe Biden in 2020, a group of Republican operatives—including former Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward—met in Phoenix and pretended to be the real electors. That was not about making elections safe. It was about trying to overturn an election.

Eleven Arizona Republicans were charged with crimes for their roles in this plot. The man they tried to put in office is now back in the White House, hiring the same people who spent years lying to destroy trust in our elections.

The Local Agents of This Plot

Here in Southeast Arizona, we have seen this up close. Tom Crosby, a Cochise County supervisor, was charged with crimes along with Peggy Judd. They tried to delay certifying the 2022 election results based on false reports that voting machines were broken. Lisa Marra, the county elections director, quit soon after—faced with an illegal hand-count and a working environment she called "physically and emotionally threatening."

When our own local officials are charged with crimes for trying to mess with elections, we cannot pretend the threat comes only from Washington.

The Damage They Have Already Done

False claims about election integrity—rejected by multiple investigations, audits, and courts—have already done huge damage. All 15 of Arizona's counties have lost their chief election officials since 2020. Election workers have faced threats. Some have needed security at their homes.

The federal government now tells us we must pass the SAVE Act to fix trust in elections. But the people who broke that trust are the same people now telling us to fix it.

The Mail-In Voting Contradiction

For my entire life, the Postal Service has been trusted to carry our most important items—bank papers, legal contracts, classified secrets, and jury summons. If the USPS is safe enough for all of that, saying it is not safe enough for a ballot means our whole system is broken. If that were true, everything would have already fallen apart.

Guess how the President voted in 2020 and in the recent Florida special election. Isn't it strange for him to trust the mail with his ballot but not ours? I guess he already knew how that ballot was filled out.

A Problem That Does Not Exist

Arizona already checks voter citizenship using good data and federal systems. So what problem are we solving? Over 36 years and 18 federal elections, with over 100 million votes cast each time, there have been just over one thousand convictions for voter fraud in the whole country. You are more likely to die in a plane crash than to see voter fraud.

When Arizona Republicans brought up old claims before a federal court, they were asked for proof. They had none. The goal is not election safety. The goal is stopping certain people from voting.

The Federal Agent Problem

Now they want to let federal agents—chosen for loyalty to their party, not the Constitution—"enforce" voter ID and immigration laws at the polls, which is outside their jurisdiction. With the voter information the administration is trying to force our state to hand over, they could plug it into their government databases and identify which voters are Democrats and which are Republicans. There will be zero oversight of this process. The agents will check an ID in their system, it will tell them whether to accept or reject, and the voter will have no recourse but to leave or be detained for interfering with agents.

It would be child's play for them to block just enough voters in the right places to decide an election. Afterwards, judges can issue warnings and try to give orders, but the election will be finished and they'll have the results they want before anything can be done about the blatantly illegal and unconstitutional things they did to block opposition votes.

For our border communities in Nogales and Douglas, there is documented history of ICE agents illegally assaulting and detaining Hispanic people based on accent or skin color. Citizens have expressed that this is a real threat that could scare away lawful voters. That any lawful voter could be turned away or detained to keep them from voting based on how a federal agent or an AI black box feels about their potential party loyalty should have every patriot fighting mad.

What Real Leadership Looks Like

Instead of cheering for federal overreach and the death of constitutional order, real leaders would pass laws to stop officials from selectively removing voters from the rolls without notice or time to get the documents they need.

They would pass emergency money to hire and train state workers to handle requests for documents. They would set up mobile document processing centers in rural and tribal areas. They would waive fees and run outreach programs to make sure as few Arizonans fall through the cracks as Washington does its damnedest to silence lawful Arizona voters.

Real leaders would follow the example of Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, who has added ballot drop boxes and sent out mobile voting units so every voter can cast a ballot—including on tribal lands where voting has long been hard.

They would be prepared to defend the integrity and sovereignty of Arizona's elections with state police to disperse unauthorized persons from illegally regulating access to polling locations.

And real leaders would give every voter a way to check their own vote and make sure it was counted correctly after the fact, with a way to quickly fix it if something went wrong. That is real integrity. It does not need federal agents or laws meant to keep people from voting.

Defending Arizona Sovereignty

Arizona leaders must be ready to use every legal tool to defend our constitutional right to run our own elections. The Declaration of Independence says governments get their power from the consent of the governed. When the federal government tries to control election results by picking and choosing voters, it breaks that consent. It says it no longer answers to the people.

Respect for the Constitution is a value every single patriot should agree with, even if it means their party loses an election. Without respect for the Constitution, there is no United States. Arizonans deserve principled leaders loyal to the rule of law over their party. They should demand nothing less.

The Stakes Could Not Be Higher

We have already seen what happens when Washington and their local allies reject the will of Arizona voters. They sent fake electors. They tried to delay certification. Their accusations fell flat—and in the end they were the ones charged.

Now the same people tell us we need to let federal agents control access to our polling places to fix a problem that does not exist. Even if they have no intention of doing what I've said, that they want the unchecked ability to do it should set off alarm bells.

That such times are upon us is shameful. It must be met with leaders who have the courage to stand up and say: Arizona will not fall to lawlessness. Not while we stand watch.

To those who will not: the people of Southeast Arizona have a long memory, and they will hold you accountable.