Voter initiatives must be error free under new GOP bill

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Not content to make gathering signatures more difficult, Republican lawmakers are now moving to impose new procedural requirements on voters who want to propose their own laws.

The measure being pushed by Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, would allow a court to keep an initiative off the ballot if backers are not in “strict compliance” with all election laws. That would overturn a series of existing court ruling which have erred on the side of giving voters their say and measures to remain on the ballot if there is “substantial compliance” with the law.

Lesko said she is particularly miffed that Arizonans were allowed to vote in 2012 on a proposal which would have made permanent the state’s one-cent sales tax surcharge.

It is undisputed that a copy of the initiative filed electronically with the secretary of state’s office differed from the one filed on paper and was actually circulated. But courts concluded the circulators had been in “substantial compliance” and allowed the vote to go forward.

That annoyed Lesko.

“What’s the point of having laws,” she said.

As it turns out, it was defeated.