Bill Text: AZ SCM1005 | 2019 | Fifty-fourth Legislature 1st Regular | Engrossed
Bill Title: Persons with disabilities; secret ballots.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 12-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2019-05-15 - Assigned to House RULES Committee [SCM1005 Detail]
Download: Arizona-2019-SCM1005-Engrossed.html
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Senate Engrossed |
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State of Arizona Senate Fifty-fourth Legislature First Regular Session 2019
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SENATE CONCURRENT MEMORIAL 1005 |
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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.
