Arizona Republican denies voter suppression -- says he just wants people to 'vote faster': report

During his unsuccessful re-election attempt, Donald Trump pushed his "Big Lie" that he could not lose unless there was fraud. Following the election, his false claims of fraud culminated in the fatal insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Now Republicans are using the lie to rationalize efforts to restrict voting in future elections.

"Serious problems happened in the 2020 election that Arizona's Republican legislators are working to solve. Too many people voted, and they voted for the wrong candidates," Tuscon Star columinist Tim Steller wrote on Saturday. "No, that's not how the GOP legislators justify the raft of bills they've proposed that would make voting harder in Arizona. But when you consider the weak justification for most of them, that's the conclusion you're left with."

"About 80%of registered Arizona voters cast a ballot in the November general election — historically high — and they voted for two Democrats at the top of the ticket: Joe Biden for president and Mark Kelly for U.S. Senate. Remarkably, Arizona voters also retained the GOP majorities in the state House and Senate. Now we pay the price for that mixed outcome," he explained. "Arizona's Legislature leads the nation in the number of bills introduced that would restrict voting, with at least 22, the Brennan Center for Justice reports. That's out of at least 165 restrictive bills introduced in 33 states this year."

Steller noted SB 1593 by Republican state Sen. David Gowan.

Alex Gulotta of the organization All Voting is Local blasted the bill during an Appropriations Committee hearing.

"This entire bill is designed so that less people will cast less votes, and of those votes that are cast, even less will be counted. So we're going to speed up the count by throwing away ballots," Gulotta charged.

Gowan complained about the attack on his motives.

"I know the intent," Gowan said. "The intent is to get ourselves to vote faster."