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Election Law Repeal Passes Arizona House Committee

Published: Thursday, January 30, 2014 - 3:03pm

A controversial election law approved by the state legislature last year is a step closer to being repealed. Last year’s law, among other things, increases the number of signatures some party’s candidates need to collect to get on the ballot and allows county recorders to remove voters from the Permanent Early Voting List.

Opponents collected enough signatures to refer the law to this November’s ballot, which put its implementation on hold, pending the results, but on Thursday, a House committee voted to repeal the law altogether.

Supporters of the repeal said it is a way of respecting the Arizonans who signed the petition to refer the law to the ballot, but referendum supporters said the repeal is just an effort to get the law off the books, avoid the vote and then pass provisions of last year’s law one by one.

Thursday’s 4-2 vote in the House Judiciary Committee sends the repeal measure to the full House for debate.