Jeremy Duda, Arizona Mirror

Undoing an emergency change to the way elected political party activists are chosen is proving more difficult than passing the law in the first place.

Lawmakers last week approved legislation intended to standardize the number of signatures that congressional and legislative candidates need to get their names on the ballot. The process was thrown into disarray and confusion by a combination of changes to election laws in recent years, the redistricting process and delays in the 2020 Census. The legislation was introduced and unanimously approved in less than a day so it would be in place on Monday, when candidates can legally begin submitting their nomination petitions to qualify for the ballot.

The bill also included another provision, misunderstood or unread by many legislators, that makes drastic changes to the process for selecting party officials known as precinct committeemen....

The censure, which has no practical effect, was for comments calling for people she perceived as enemies to be hanged from gallows, and for social media postings Rogers made threatening to “personally destroy” fellow Republicans who sought to punish her. The censure resolution was silent on her embrace of white nationalists and a string of antisemitic and racist things she had posted online in recent days.

Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican, didn’t defend or even address her comments on the Senate floor. Instead, she called the censure an attempt to limit her freedom of speech.

“I represent hundreds of thousands of people and the majority of them are with me. And they want me to be their voice. You are really censuring them. I do not apologize. I will not back down. And I am sorely disappointed in the leadership of this body for colluding with the Democrats to attempt to destroy my reputation,” Rogers said. “In the end, I rejoice in knowing I do and say what is right. And I speak as a free American, regardless of the actions of this corrupted process today.”...

Discussions are underway at the Arizona Senate about possibly censuring Sen. Wendy Rogers over her recent inflammatory comments and her speech to a white nationalist conference over the weekend, according to the chamber’s second-ranking Republican.

“We’re talking about that. We’re discussing that. I think it’s better to consolidate on what we’re going to do before we start talking to the media about what we’re going to do,” Sen. Rick Gray, the Senate majority leader, told reporters on Monday.

Rogers lashed out at the idea Monday night, writing on social media that she “will not apologize for being white. Hit me all you want.”...

Gov. Doug Ducey said he has no regrets about spending $500,000 to elect a Republican state senator with open ties to the white nationalist movement because it’s still better than having a Democrat in her seat.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. And she’s still better than her opponent, Felicia French,” he said Thursday.

Ducey’s political action committee, Arizonans for Strong Leadership, spent millions in 2020 to help the GOP maintain control of the legislature, including nearly $500,000 to help Republican Wendy Rogers win the race for the District 6 Senate seat in northern Arizona. Rogers won nearly 55% of the vote against Democrat Felicia French, a victory that kept the Senate in GOP hands by a single vote....

Shiva Ayyadurai, the subcontractor who conducted a botched analysis of Maricopa County’s ballot affidavits as part of the Senate’s review of the 2020 election, slammed the “audit” leaders as “self-serving grifters” in a new report.

Ayyadurai completed an analysis of the digital images of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the last general election. But before he explained his findings in the report he issued on Thursday, Ayyadurai took “audit” team leader Cyber Ninjas to task for alleged problems with the review, airing issues with the election review and disparaging those he accused of enriching themselves while ignoring critical issues.

The Senate hired Ayyadurai’s company, EchoMail, to examine digital images of the affidavits that voters must sign on the envelopes they use to vote with early ballots. His subsequent report and presentation to the Senate in November was riddled with inaccuracies, largely stemming from a misunderstanding of many of the policies and procedures used for signature verification, and demonstrably false claims. ...