AZ: GOP leader claims a non-binding resolution bans Arizona election machines
Claiming that a non-binding resolution overrides state law, an Arizona Republican state senator on Monday declared that Arizona counties are barred from using machines to count ballots — an assertion that was quickly shot down by elections officials, the state’s attorney general and county leaders.
Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli penned a letter to all 15 Arizona counties on Monday, telling them that they were barred from using any machines to administer future elections. He claimed that the legislature’s recent approval of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1037 was binding under a radical interpretation of a constitutional provision that would effectively allow state legislatures to do whatever they want with elections.
The core of the so-called “plenary powers” theory is that legislatures can change election rules and administration whenever they want and however they want, with no checks or balances by the judicial or executive branches.
In this case, Borrelli claimed that, even though Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed actual legislation that would have changed state law to ban all election machines used in Arizona, a change in the law isn’t needed to bar those machines because of SCR1037.
The resolution is little more than a statement of the legislature’s belief on the topic and does not carry the weight of law. It declares that voting equipment is critical infrastructure and should be “open source” and made entirely in the United States, that specific machines cannot be used in the state, and outright disallows the use of any electronic equipment to tabulate, vote or record vote totals.
https://www.azmirror.com/2023/05/22/citing-plenary-powers-gop-leader-claims-a-non-binding-resolution-bans-arizona-election-machines/
