My wife and I have just re-registered as conservative independents with the Maricopa County Election Office. We have left the Republican Party due to the fact the AZ GOP establishment has not controlled the corrupt proxy abuse that has been going on for years at the GOP State and local levels. We were lifelong Republicans and proud of it. We were also LD 13 committee persons.
AZ State law allows proxies to be used for political organizations (AZ Rev Stat § 16-828) through its bylaws and the statute sets minimum requirements. The problem is that there is no limit to the amount of proxies one person can have unless it is set in the bylaws of the political organization. The State/County GOP and local LD’s have not restricted the amount of proxies one person can have. Thus, you have the “establishment clicks” controlling the vote and thus the outcome of the vote. Not a level playing field. This is a form of ballot harvesting and the AZ GOP is no better than the Democrats when the Democrats are ballot harvesting during the general election. In fact, proxy harvesting just happened at the Republican LD 13 organizational meeting this month.
It is time to clean house, and limit proxies to two that one person can carry to the meeting and that it be certified. No signed witnesses, which is another story.
Send a message to the AZ GOP and please join us and re-register as a conservative independent voter. My wife and I will still support conservative candidates. We may come back one day to the AZ GOP.
Brent Backus
Waddell, AZ