Judge Refuses To Dismiss Kari Lake’s Effort to Access Ballot Affidavit Envelopes
7/10/23
from Conservative Brief,
7/9/23:
A judge in Maricopa County, Arizona, has ruled he won’t block former GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake’s attempts to access ballot affidavit envelopes from last year’s election as she continues to battle what she views as fraudulent activities that she says led to her defeat.
Maricopa County had argued that, except for a few specific cases where county attorneys believed Lake fell short, the signatures present on the ballot affidavit are considered confidential as they are an integral part of the voter registration record, protected by state law.
But Judge John Hannah dismissed the claim on the basis that county recorders frequently incorporate ballot affidavit envelopes into voter registration records, not necessarily due to legal obligations or explicit instructions, according to the AZ Capitol Times late last month.
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The court is “not required to defer to the elections officials in how they have historically interpreted” the statute, Hannah noted from the bench. He added that while he did not disagree with the interpretation, he also had “no quarrel” with it.
“I am not convinced that the ballot affidavit is a voter registration record,” Hannah said. “It is a record from which the election officials derive information that becomes part of the voter registration record, but that doesn’t mean the ballot affidavit itself is a voter registration record.”
Henry Olsen, is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact on other democracies in the developed world.
In this podcast he discusses the five factions of the Republican Party with Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation.
Summary of the discussion:
To what extent should the Republican party be organized behind “MAGA” principles?
Old Republicans
1. Base, never support a conservative
2. Base, want to co-exist with conservatives (McCain)
3. economic conservatives (Bush) (Reagan)
4. cultural conservatives (Reagan)
-Moderate Republicans never agreed with conservatism in any stripe.
-George Bush was a business conservative, which was okay against McCain, who was a moderate Republican.
Trump represented a 'silent plurality' in the 2016 primary, and eventually in the election; militarily nationalist, moderately conservative on social issues, strong on small government. In the 2016 election voters disliked both candidates. An undecided group; primarily Republican leaning on issues, college educated, suburban, men, who were fathers, at the last minute elected Trump, because they couldn't take Hillary.
Five factions of the Republican Party in 2023 are:
1. Base (old Republicans, who have bought into cultural change and larger government)
2. Clothes & Cosmetics conservatives (Chamber of Commerce, just get along, conservatives)
3. Loud & Clear conservatives (Movement conservatives, economic & cultural)
4. MAGA principles (Trump)
5. MAGA adjacent; like, but willing to look beyond Trump, but never an old guard Rep (33%)
Can the old and the new fuse as 'common friends'? Not sure.
What happened in the Mid-term elections?
Exit polls said:
- somewhat disapprove with the President (20-40% usually vote against the President)
- strongly disapprove of the President
- somewhat disapprove of the President voted with him. (20-40%- Dems won them)
- Dems did good job creating doubt
- Dems made it a choice vs a referendum
- don't like Biden, but don't want Reps with keys to the car
- Trump neophyte candidates lost worse than non-Trump candidates
- the same 2016 undecided group that elected Trump; Republican leaning on issues, college, suburban, men, who were fathers, they swung to Dems in 2018 & 2020, and not enough swung back in 2022.
- Hispanic movement in 2016 has stayed Rep
- in Fla. though, in 2022, they moved more to Rep.
- Dems can't yet get a moderate Dem through the primaries. They try, but they lose. So they label candidates as moderate (Biden). then the country realizes that was not true.
Going into 2024:
-Despite gratitude for Trump's accomplishments as President, he has a real drag on the electorate.
-National, aspirational vision needed by Conservatives
-Conservatives good at governing at the state level, perceived not good a national level.
-Old questions divide us, new questions can unite us.
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