Staff Reports
The decision made by the Arizona Supreme Court on Friday to determine that Proposition 210, a ballot initiative to overturn Arizona's new election transparency law that was funded by George Soros, cannot be on the ballot in November because it lacks the necessary signatures, was a big victory for proponents of election integrity.
Arizona is one of the states that came to the realization after the election in 2020 that legislative reforms were necessary in order to increase public faith in the outcome of the vote and to make voting simple while simultaneously making it harder to cheat on the vote.
The Constitution of Arizona allows ballot initiatives to take precedence over laws that have been passed by elected legislators. The laws that would be enacted as a result of many of these projects are ultimately rejected by legislators. One of these left-wing projects was Arizona's enforced taxpayer major sponsor of political campaigns. The Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett case brought before the United States Supreme Court challenged the constitutionality of this practice and found it to be in breach of the First Amendment (2011).
The most recent attempt to overthrow the elected legislature of the Grand Canyon State was funded largely by billionaire activist George Soros through his Open Society Foundation and another activist group called Way to Win, both of which take credit for Democratic victories in 2020. The funds were funneled through an organization named Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections, which is associated with the political left. The well-funded activists turned in more than 475 thousand signatures in support of their cause.
Conservatives questioned the veracity of these signatures, claiming they were forged. After a previous round of litigation, the Supreme Court of Arizona sent the matter back to a judge in Maricopa County for additional consideration. On Thursday of this week, the court in charge of the case decided that the event's organizers had almost acquired the necessary 239,926 signatures, topping that threshold by only a few thousand votes.
However, after receiving yet another appeal, the Supreme Court of Arizona reigned on Thursday that it was impossible to verify the authenticity rate utilised by the trial court. The court then ordered the trial judge to justify his conclusions by Friday at noon. After the trial judge failed to provide an adequate justification for his estimates, the Arizona Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the ballot measure did not have sufficient amounts of legitimate signatures to be put before the voters in November.
A concerted campaign by a coalition was victorious in its opposition to the initiative that was backed by Soros. The action was initiated by Scot Mussi, who is the head of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. This is the same organization that was successful in a case brought before the United States Supreme Court in 2011 on another ballot proposal. Mussi's efforts were aided by individuals such as Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project and Jessica Anderson of Heritage Action. He also received assistance from a number of other individuals who advocate for the honesty of elections, such as Blackwell and Ken Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia.
If the proposal that was supported by Soros had been successful, the voting integrity standards that were in place in Arizona would have been reversed in time for the presidential election in 2024.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on National Insider.
