Why do some Republican lawmakers still plot to end voting by mail?

A reader asked recently if I could logically explain why so many Republicans who voted by mail in the last election, and in previous elections, supported candidates who want to outlaw voting by mail.

I cannot.

Not logically, anyway.

Nearly 80% of those who cast ballots in the recent election did so by mail. It is the voting method preferred by the vast majority of Arizona citizens.

One of the politicians who was elected by those individuals, Republican Rep. Liz Harris of Chandler, has introduced a bill that says, essentially, everyone must go to the polls, providing mail-in exceptions only for the physically unable and military personnel overseas.

End mail-in voting because of conspiracies?

Harris is a believer in unfounded conspiracy theories about elections and other things spread by the kooks at QAnon, which has promoted lunatic conspiracies about the world being run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who kill and eat children.

Yeah, she’s in your Legislature. And she’s not alone in her beliefs about mail-in voting. Republicans under state party chair Kelli Ward went to court to try to eliminate it.

On Tuesday the state Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that said the lawsuit had no merit.

When the Legislature first enacted a law allowing all voters to do so by mail it was passed by both the House and the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was signed into law by then-Gov. Fife Symington, a Republican.

Republicans want to change a system they own

And since then Republicans in Arizona have dominated state government.

In fact, since 1992, Republicans have simultaneously controlled the House, the Senate and the governor’s office 22 times. While Democrats have done so … never.And they still don’t.

New era:Arizona Legislature is most diverse in state history

Harris is part of a Republican-majority House.

And yet she has said, “I call on all state legislators to join me in demanding a new election. I will now be withholding my vote on any bills in this session without this new election in protest to what is clearly a potential fraudulent election.”

What other advances should we scrap?

Except that none of the many court cases or audits have found any fraud that would change anything.

Besides, if a cabal of child-eating pedophiles is running the show why would they have allowed someone like Harris – and other Republicans – to win their elections and control the Legislature?

And if the technology that affords us the safe and effective convenience of mail-in voting is actually a problem, or part of some global conspiracy, what other advances should be rolled back?

Should computers be replaced by the typewriters? Or better yet, with inkwells and quills? Should telecommunications be scrapped for the tap-tap-tap of a telegraph? And since we’re out West, should be bring back the pony express?

Maybe we should just scrap all of our scientific and technological advances and revert back to the Stone Age.

Or have some of us already done that?

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Some Arizona Republicans are still plotting to end voting by mail