Arizona State University (ASU) students have racked up a stack of figurative scalps of people who offended them for something done in the past either at the campus or at a different university. Now they are taking aim at a recently-proposed voter identification law under consideration by the Grand Canyon State’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey.
The Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition (AANHPI) posted its political activist plea on the social media platform Instagram to have ASU students email the governor’s office about HB2492.
The group posted a verbatim script for activists to follow, which read:
Governor Ducey,
I am calling you to veto HB2492. HB2492 is an abhorrent anti-democratic bill that will require all existing voters to retroactively provide proof of citizenship and creates unnecessary burdens on new voters who do not register with an Arizona driver’s license or state ID.
Native American voters without traditional addresses recognized by the U.S. Postal Service, voters experiencing poverty or homelessness, voters who do not drive, and out-of-state students enrolled in Arizona college will be forced to provide a photocopy of documentary proof of residence.
HB2492 needs to be vetoed because it is a part of a coordinated campaign by a select group of state lawmakers, whose own Senate rules attorney warned of the illegality of this bill, to pass anti-democracy laws based on conspiracy theories to deliberately sabotage future elections.
HB2492 attempts to require proof of U.S. citizenship and state residency for registered voters on a retroactive basis to ensure that all voters are legal voters. Some critics, like the AANHPI, have a legitimate concern about how it affects Native American voters due to discrepancies in identification for tribal members.
There is also a shorter version from the group’s Instagram post, which reads:
“HB2492 is a bill that will require people who are already registered voters to re-register. This impacts the homeless, those who don’t drive, out-of-state college students in AZ, and individuals who do not have traditional postal code addresses.”
Among its claims, there is at least one significant problem with AANHPI’s script because out-of-state college students should not be eligible for state residency, unless they have completed the paperwork necessary to declare themselves to be Arizona residents and pay taxes as Arizonans.
Though there are concerns about a lack of having a proper state identification document, such as a driver’s license, the claim ignores the degree to which states such as Arizona make the identification process simple for its residents. A person applying for an Arizona driver’s license needs to provide one primary document, such as a birth certificate or citizenship certificate, provide one’s Social Security number, and two proofs of state residency such as a utility bill or apartment lease document.
Ducey is in the last year of his second and final term in office and until recently, was rumored to be running in this year’s midterm Senate election to challenge incumbent senator, billionaire, and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. Meaning, Ducey is not politically inclined to kowtow to a small group of left-wing, activist students at ASU.
Ducey also had to consider the legislative support for the bill, which was approved by both state chambers through its narrow Republican majority.
The AANHPI’s homepage said that its top 2022 legislative priorities are “climate justice, “immigration reform/path to citizenship,” public safety/Covid19 safety precautions and vaccine distribution,” voting rights,” and “equitable representation.” On its About page, the group said that it is a group “striving for equity and justice” and it seeks to unite minority groups “as a part of the broader racial justice movement.”
The organization also lists its fellows, many of whom are high school students who are politically active, which is a common recruiting tactic from the Left to recruit young, impressionable minds to its cause and ideology.
