Stripping Arizona of Election Safeguards Erodes Voter Integrity: Tea Party Official

How does Biden become the great uniter if the American people don't know he won that race legitimately?

Votes are counted by staff at the Maricopa County Elections Department office in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 5, 2020. Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

Arizona lost one of its key protections on voter integrity after the Supreme Court in 2013 overturned legislation requiring a proof of citizenship for people who register to vote. This erodes voter integrity, Dan Farley, Tea Party Phoenix Metro President told The Epoch Times.

Although the state website says that persons “must be a U.S. citizen in order to register and vote,” it also says that proof of citizenship is not required when voting in federal elections. Voters are instead only required to prove they are an Arizona resident and U.S. citizen for state and local elections, Farley said in a recent interview on The Epoch Times’ Crossroads program.

“We might be able to protect our state currently but we are unable to protect our electoral votes and the leadership of our nation,” Farley said.

In 2002, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission introduced a national mail voter registration form through which people could register to vote.

People who use this federal form to register only need to check off on the form that they are American citizens “with no proof required,” Farley said.

Therefore, Arizonians tried to pass legislation that introduced a requirement to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and identification when casting a ballot.

The law, known as Proposition 200, was designed to strengthen voter integrity, Farley said. But the requirement to present a proof of citizenship was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Election integrity is especially critical if one candidate is leading by a narrow margin as in this year’s presidential race where President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are “only about 12 000 votes apart,” Farley said.

If people who are not U.S. citizens registered to vote in Arizona using the national voter registration form, then votes of legitimate U.S. citizens and Arizona’s electoral votes will be stolen, Farley said. This can “occur in every state across the nation because this is the gray area,” he added.

“This issue should be front and center at the Election Assistance [Commission],” Farley said, adding that “you have to show your id to cash a check, you have to show your id to get a library book or anything else. This is the most important, this is the freedom of the country, the freedom of mankind.”

“There’s nothing more critical to our republic than the assurance of election integrity,” he said. “If your vote is disenfranchised or miscounted by a machine, or there’s dead people voting, or you have these federal forms that all erode voter integrity, what confidence do you have that you are not in a tyranny?”

The easy solution to this issue would be to add a requirement to federal vote registration forms for proof of citizenship, Farley said, adding that there are “more states in this nation that do not verify citizenship than those that do. That’s alarming.”

“Don’t strip the voter integrity of the states that are trying to enforce it,” he asked of lawmakers.

“We’re in times where we have to ask ourselves a lot of questions and I think first and foremost is: ‘Does our government represent our citizens?’ And I think the answer comes down to: ‘Are our elections trustworthy?’ And that is a legitimate discovery process we should go through in the next number of weeks,” he said.

“If Biden is going to be the great uniter, shouldn’t the American people know that he won that race legitimately? Because how does he unite if his legitimacy is in question,” Farley added.

“I believe that there should be federal standards on election integrity starting with the federal [voter registration] form and verifying citizenship,” Farley said.

Self-Reliance

President Donald Trump speaks with Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott (R) as they participates in a ceremony commemorating the 200th mile of border wall at the international border with Mexico in San Luis, Arizona, on June 23, 2020. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Farley said he chooses to align himself with the Tea Party movement because he is a proponent of the principles of self-reliance, strengthening individuals, individual self-governance, constitutional values, and fiscal responsibility.

President Donald Trump has strengthened the country’s borders, the military, standing in the world, self-reliance on energy to become an energy independent nation, and is in the process of moving manufacturing back to the country, including making personal protection equipment for medical staff, Farley said.

All of this strengthens “self-reliance that gives us control of our own lives” and contributes to American strength and freedom, as well as election integrity, he added.

There is no election integrity with open borders, Farley said. Leftist policies advocate open borders and lowering the voting age. Both will allow people who do not understand American system and why America is successful to vote.

“The integrity of our elections is essential to the integrity of our republic … I think we should look closely if there are problems in our election system, what they are, and what it will take to correct and resolve those,” he told Crossroads.

This way, “we can have confidence in our government and confidence that our elected officials are the ones that we’ve actually selected,” he said, adding that it needs to be ensured that, for all states, only American citizens’ votes are being counted.

“That is how you ensure that you have a republic of ‘We the People,’” Farley concluded. “Let the Constitution be the supreme law of the land.”