Ariz. affirmative action ban foes file challenge
by The Associated Press on Aug. 18, 2008, under Elections, Local, SpecialPHOENIX — Alleging fraud by petition circulators and other improprieties, opponents of a ballot measure to generally bar racial and gender preferences by the state government asked a court Monday to keep the initiative off the November ballot.
Protect Arizona’s Freedom on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging about a third of the more than 300,000 petition signatures filed to qualify Proposition 104 for the ballot. Opponents say the signatures are ineligible for reasons other than the voter registration status of individuals who signed those petitions.
Disqualifying that many signatures would keep the measure off the ballot, said state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat who heads Protect Arizona’s Freedom.
Violations included petitions circulated by felons whose civil rights hadn’t been restored, petitions circulated by ineligible individuals who misrepresented their identities or addresses, and petition sheets not properly notarized, according to the lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on behalf of two university students.
The proposed state constitutional amendment aimed at dismantling preferential treatment programs for women and minorities, the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, is championed by Ward Connerly.
The former California education official has succeeded in winning approval of similar measures in that state as well in Washington and Michigan and is also proposing versions this year in Colorado and Nebraska.
A spokesman for Secretary of State Jan Brewer did not immediately return a call for comment on the status of the state’s review of the petitions submitted to qualify Proposition 104 for the ballot.
However, Sinema indicated she anticipated that elections officials’ checks of a random sample of petitions would find a lack of enough valid signatures to qualify Proposition 104 for the ballot. She said she hoped her group’s lawsuit would persuade supporters of the measure to abandon their efforts.
“This lawsuit is a message to Ward Connerly,” Sinema said, adding that Arizonans won’t tolerate cheating.
Max McPhail, the initiative campaign’s executive director, expressed confidence the measure will qualify for the ballot despite “the technical issues” cited in the lawsuit. It’s ridiculous to think that felons collected many signatures, he said.
“It’s the only way they have of making sure this doesn’t pass,” McPhail said. “Once it’s on the ballot, it will pass overwhelmingly,” he said.
The new litigation on Proposition 104 comes as state courts already are wrestling with several lawsuits on other initiatives, including ones to get measures on state trust land and transportation financing on the ballot despite Brewer’s determinations that they lacked sufficient valid signatures.
