REFERENCE TITLE: persons with disabilities; secret ballots.

State of Arizona Senate Fifty-fourth Legislature First Regular Session 2019

SCM 1005

Introduced by Senators Alston: Bowie, Bradley, Contreras, Dalessandro, Gonzales, Mendez, Navarrete, Otondo, Peshlakai, Rios, Steele

 

A CONCURRENT MEMORIAL

 

urging the arizona secretary of state and arizona's county recorders to ensure that citizens of arizona who have a disability can cast a secret ballot.

 

 

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

 

To the Arizona Secretary of State and this state's county recorders:

Your memorialist respectfully represents:

Whereas, casting a secret ballot is a cornerstone of our nation's democracy, one that enables Arizona's citizens to vote their conscience without fear; and

Whereas, title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that voters with disabilities be afforded an opportunity to exercise their right to vote in a manner that is equivalent to the opportunity afforded to voters without disabilities; and

Whereas, election technology developers have designed accessible ballot-marking devices that produce ballots that are different in size and content from the ballot that is hand-marked by the majority of Arizona's voters, and each city and county has different voting machines and ballot layouts; and

Whereas, due to the ballot-marking devices, ballots cast by voters with disabilities can be identified as such and, as a result, are not secret ballots; and

Whereas, Arizona may be in violation of title II of the ADA when it does not provide voters with disabilities the same opportunity to cast a secret ballot that it provides voters without disabilities.

Wherefore your memorialist, the Senate of the State of Arizona, the House of Representatives concurring, prays:

1.  That the Arizona Secretary of State and this state's county recorders implement procedures to ensure that voters with disabilities have the same opportunity to cast a secret ballot as voters without disabilities.

2.  That the Secretary of State transmit a copy of this Memorial to the county recorder in each of the fifteen counties in Arizona.