9th Circuit Court To Give Opponents Another Swipe At Arizona 'Ballot Harvesting' Law

By Holliday Moore
Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
Published: Monday, January 7, 2019 - 11:43am

As national attention focuses on the investigation into possible "ballot harvesting" in a North Carolina congressional race, a federal appeals court plans to give Democrats another chance to argue against an earlier ruling upholding Arizona's 2016 elections law.

That law bars the collection and delivery of ballots by third parties, but a federal panel on the 9th Circuit Court rejected arguments that it infringed on voting rights and that Republicans produced no evidence of ballot tampering in local elections.

This time, the Democrat's attorney Spencer Scharff has plans to argue that Arizona voters have long been protected by existing laws.

"There are numerous laws currently on the books, both state and federal, that properly regulate criminal behavior as it relates to elections and conduct that appears to have occurred in North Carolina," he said.

The order does not mean that a full panel of 11 judges intends to override the earlier ruling. But, it is relatively rare for the full court to grant such review.

Politics