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September 16, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Proposition 200;
· New Touch-Screen Voting Machines
In-Studio Guests:
· Kathy McKee, Chairman and Director, Protect Arizona Now, proponents of Prop 200;
· Julie Pace, "No on 200, Arizonans for Real Immigration Reform;"
· Secretary of State Jan Brewer

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Tonight on "Horizon," hear from both sides of proposition 200 as we tell you more about the initiative aimed at denying services to illegal immigrants and requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Speaking of voting, Arizona will be using touch-screen voting for the first time this upcoming election, but our machines are designed to avoid much of the controversy swirling around the issue. That's up next on "Horizon."

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Good evening, and welcome to "Horizon." I'm Cary Pfeffer, sitting in for Michael Grant. Proposition 200, or the Protect Arizona Now initiative, has stirred up lots of controversy. Yesterday, that continued, as one of the proposition's supporters called for a boycott of Bank One for its opposition of the initiative. We'll talk to a supporter and an opponent of the measure, but first, Mike Sauceda tells us about the initiative.

>> Reporter Mike Sauceda:
An Arizona voter registration form on which it's a class 6 felony to lie about anything, including your citizenship.

>> Joe Kanefield:
When you register to vote you sign the registration form. When you sign it, you are indicating -- you are providing your name, residence address, your date of birth, your signature and also under the Help America Vote Act, you are now required to check a box that indicates that you are, in fact, a citizen of the United States.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Joe Kanefield, elections director for the Secretary of State's office says no documentation is required to prove citizenship and no proof of ID is needed when casting a ballot. That would change under proposition 200, which is often referred to as the Protect Arizona Now Initiative. The iniative would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Acceptable documents would be a driver's license issued after October 1, 1996, copy of a birth certificate, copy of passport or naturalization cards. If you are already registered to vote, you will not be required to provide proof of citizenship, unless you move to another county and register there. When voting, if Prop 200 passes you will be required to provide a photo ID or two forms of ID with your name and address on it. Prop 200 will also affect public benefits. Right now when obtaining public benefits, U.S. citizenship or legal status is required before getting standard medical coverage from AHCCCS.

>> Frank Lopez:
On the application, there is a place where you check whether you are a citizen or not, and then there is a statement at the bottom that you sign and attest that everything you've signed for is true under penalty of law. But we do check Social Security numbers through the Social Security Administration. That's our ID check through, you know, for anybody. If we're not -- we are allowed to proceed this way. If we have any question about the answers that someone is giving, if any legitimate question, then we can check citizenship further. Also, if they say they've been born in another country, we check status further. Otherwise, we can't go checking just based on skin color or language or -- which would be profiling.

>> Reporter Mike Sauceda:
AHCCCS does provide emergency services regardless of a person's immigration status. The cost of that is projected at $120 million, a cost shared by the state and federal government.

>> Frank Lopez:
They can get services if they are in an emergency.

>> Reporter Mike Sauceda:
That might change under the measure. Proposition 200 will create new laws to apply to the state and political subdivisions and its employees. That includes verification of the identity of those applying for benefits and whether they are eligible for benefits. It would not allow ID cards to be used for identification, including a driver's license, unless the agency has checked the immigration status of the person. The initiative states it shall be enforced without regard do race, religion, gender, ethnicity or national origin. Finally, it requires government workers to file a written report to federal immigration officials if they discover an immigration violation by anyone applying for benefits. If they do not, that employee and a supervisor could be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor. Federal law prohibits state workers from reporting to federal authorities.

>> Frank Lopez:
We are not allowed to report anything to immigration. There are a couple of laws, Social Security Act does not allow it. Civil rights act does not allow it. The centers for Medicare and Medicaid which oversees the Medicaid program does not allow it.

>> Reporter Mike Sauceda:
If the initiative passes, the Justice Department will have to review it because it makes changes to voting law and AHCCCS is still not sure how it will comply with Prop 200.

>> Frank Lopez:
There is a conflict. We're caught here. If we owe by federal law, we'll be in violation of state law, if it passes and subject to prosecution. If we obey state law, we will be subject to federal action, which could mean loss of funding.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Here now to talk about proposition 200 is Kathy McKee, the Chairman and Director of Protect Arizona, the group pushing Prop 200. Also here is Julie Pace of "No on 200, Arizonans for Real Immigration Reform." We appreciate that. Why don't we start, Kathy, with that. In a nutshell, explain why people should vote for proposition 200.

>> Kathy McKee:
Well, I would challenge Mr. Lopez as I have many times, government agencies to show us where in federal law it prohibits them from asking for immigration status. The hospitals to do it otherwise they wouldn't be reimbursed. Actually what they are doing is against the U.S. constitution the supremacy clause in article 6 prohibits states from impeding their employees from cooperating with the federal government. But to answer your specific question, there is a lot of fraud and the fact that people aren't being arrested doesn't mean that there is not a lot of fraud going on, because actually there are no employers arrested or sanctioned for hiring illegals in Arizona and would anyone imply that there are no employers hiring illegals here? No. If the laws were being enforced we wouldn't have to up-end our lives. We've quit our jobs, ignored our families, had to give up other commitments, just to try to get our laws enforced through this initiative.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
We will talk about the details and the specifics in a moment. Julie pace, why should people vote against proposition 200.

>> Julie Pace:
There is a lost reason reasons to vote no for 200, when we've been look agent this in trying to deal with real immigration reform, immigration issues are federal issues and very complicated and many times well-intentioned laws are enacted that cause all kinds of problems. This is one of those laws which really does nothing to cure the immigration reform that we're trying to get worked on and working with our federal congressional delegation. This is one of these things where this law is poorly drafted. It has all kinds of legal problems that's going to be a full-time employment act for lawyers to litigate many parts of this law. There are -- this is one of the reasons why the Arizona's congressional Republican delegation has gone out and reviewed this law and every one of them is opposed to it, Senator Kyl, Senator McCain, all of our representatives. They are dealing with this issue daily. They are dealing with immigration in the Congress which is where it has to be dealt with. The state cann

>> Cary Pfefer:
We'll talk about the details again. Let's go through some of the specifics and Julie -- Kathy, let's start with the voting question, and the specifics of that include proof of citizenship to register; correct?

>>Kathy McKee:
Yes.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
And ID at the time of voting. What about the questions that have been raised by opponents who say it will make things more complicated and add extra layers in a process that should be as smooth as possible to encourage people to vote.

>> Kathy McKee:
Ever since motor voter has been enacted, the percentage of people voting has gone down. It's not a fact that it's hard to vote, but I think a lot of times people don't vote because there are such pathetic excuses for candidates. We're not asking for anything more than what citizens already have as proof of citizenship, passport, birth certificates, naturalization papers, Indian census bureau. People have those. When they go to vote, we're not asking for anything extraordinary. You have to have a photo ID to get a block buster rental card. Isn't voting as important as going to block buster or the dump? We live in a society where you have to proof who you are. The honor system is not working.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
What about people who say this is addressing an issue that isn't necessary in that county recorder, that serves Maricopa County as well as Pima County has said voter fraud with illegal immigrants voting has not been an issue for them?

>> Kathy McKee:
If I want to read the quotes and believe them in the paper, which I rarely do believe them, that's not true, because there was just a woman in El Mirage, Ms. Calderon and her campaign manager who back in 2002, she was running for office and bragging about her voter record back to the 80s. She had only been a citizen since 1988. The county attorney's office did pursue prosecution of her, and she admitted guilt guilty. The judge let her off Scott free? Why take valuable resources to bring people like that to trial and get them convicted if the judges aren't going to take it seriously? Again, I will say over and over, anybody who thinks we don't have voter fraud in this state -- it's all kinds, not just illegal aliens, must also think we don't have employers hiring illegals. We haven't had one person arrested for doing that in years.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Julie on the voting issue.

>> Julie Pace:
We have a law on the books that you cannot vote in this country unless you are a U.S. citizen. We have laws on the books to deal with voter fraud as the case that Kathy mentioned. If there is a case that comes forward, it's there, it can be dealt with. I also checked with the Pima County recorder. Did you have voter fraud issues, is this an issue voters should be concerned about? She said absolutely not. It is not an issue they are concerned about. They care about voter fraud and they will investigate anything they find, but they are not finding that people who are coming over for jobs are registering and trying to commit fraud in that area. That's not to say -- and I think the question then becomes, how much paperwork do we want? Do we want paper files in there, or don't we? If this had been written differently, their maybe that's something citizens should pass. Right now it's way more cost in keeping paper files than we need, and the voter issue is tied with the public benefits issues which

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Just to check one more thing on the voting process, when someone shows up at the polls, how would you envision that process going? In other words someone shows up, does everybody then need to show ID, show their driver's license?

>> Kathy McKee:
Everybody does. I have to point out that the joint budget commission said it's impossible to say that this initiative will cost any amount of money or will save any amount of money since no one knows including them, and it's their duty to check this and I assumed they were bipartisan. Linda Gray's bill that was passed in would you 2003 and the Governor vetoed it, it had a fiscal impact of zero dollars. So these cost estimates that it's going to cost millions of dollars are just scare tactics. It will cost something to check proof of citizenship, but going to the polls, people already take ID out to give to people, and we say no, no, we don't want to see it.

>> Julie Pace:
Unfortunately, this bill requires that you have to make photocopies to register to vote and they have to keep paper files. This is a fast-growing state. You are putting a burden on the county record are to make photocopies of the documents and keep them.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Julie has made a point of the record-keeping side of it, respond to that.

>> Kathy McKee:
Polls would think that people would rather that than payable ballots.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
We'll talk about that in the next segment.

>> Kathy McKee:
We had the team of the best constitutional lawyers in the state and in the country review this, an that was their specialty, constitutional law --

>> Cary Pfeffer:
They said go with paper?

>> Kathy McKee:
We were comfortable with what they've told us and we're comfortable that it's legally challenge proof. Not that there won't be suit filed, but people still feel more comfortable with paper than microfilm and computer files.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Let's move on to public benefit. That's the bigger picture as far as numbers and impact on everyday life is concerned. Explain part of that process from your perspective in somebody comes to a hospital, somebody is hoping to get taken care of in that sort of a situation. What do they have to go through and what is the caregiver have to do in order to make sure that no laws are being broken if proposition 200 passes?

>> Kathy McKee:
Thank you. The EMTALA, Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act passed back in the '80s requires treatment of emergency medical conditions regardless of immigration status, regardless of ability to pay, regardless of everything. The key phrase that keeps getting misused and abused is emergency medical condition. Everyone that goes through emergency room or such an acute care facility is not entitled to care. They are entitled to a screening to determine if they have a emergency medical condition which is clearly defined under the statute. If they have an emergency medical condition then they need to be treated. If it's a woman in active labor, the fetus or baby needs to be delivered through the placenta. If they don't, if they have sniffles, abrasions, whatever, the hospital is electing to treat them on their own. They are not required or is it even suggested that they treat nonemergency medical conditions.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
At that point is where you see proposition 200 stepping in?

>> Kathy McGee:
Yes.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Doesn't that provide for some gray area there or judgments that would have to be made by the treating personnel?

>> Kathy McKee:
I don't think there is much gray area in it. I think under the act, it's clearly defined as life threatening or even severe enough pain that the person couldn't function or severed limb. It's clearly defined.

>> Julie Pace:
Several things, even the example of the hospitals, do we want citizens of the State of Arizona to put our doctors and nurses at hospitals on tap now to have to make those decisions when they are trying to care with emergency needs, trying to transfer them to other parts of the national. We have to are have written reports, proof of citizenship. We're calling reporting requirements into question now. This is way over the top from citizens who already our emergency rooms are very busy. We don't want extra reporting requirements. Other problem with public benefits, it's not defined. We talk about medical care, but it's undefined and we're going to have case after case to try to figure out what did they really mean when they wrote this law. Unfortunately, the courts are going to have to look to not what we say now or what the proponents say, it's what's in the statutes. It's not a defined term at all. Governor Napolitano's office came out with a report that this will cost in the multiple tens of

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Talk about public benefit and defining it.

>> Kathy McKee:
I will but under 46-140 (C) it's already the law that state workers are subjected to a criminal misdemeanor penalty if they don't submit a written report regarding welfare fraud. The problem is that on the welfare application and within the welfare department, they have a -- that special rule that we talked about, policy prohibiting their employees from reporting illegal alien fraud. So there is a double standard there that we're not meeting. Our initiative clearly states and it couldn't be any clearer so I disagree about the ambiguity about the benefits. It says section 6 title 46, chapter 1, shall be amended. Okay, so the only thing that we're amending is title 46, chapter 1, and that's this. Here are all of the programs that are listed. And in there, there's not anything in there about hunting licenses, there is nothing in there about auto emissions. I challenge someone to show me in this statute which is all we're amending anything on there about dam repairs and -- I mean, when you read

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Very quickly, I'm going to gear this answer to the fact that as far as the public opinion polls are concerned, your fighting an uphill battle here.

>> Julie Pace:
Absolutely. We have a challenge. This came onto the ballot and now we're out there trying to organize. We have a broad coalition of support, including the Arizona hospital Association which is absolutely opposed to this, including the business community, including the unions. It's a broad coalition of Republicans, Democrats, across the board, because this is a bad law. It's poorly worded. It's going to cost taxpayers money and we need to focus on real immigration reform and not use tax dollars for this kind of a bureaucratic record-keeping and make it harder on police and fire and nurses and doctors.

>> Cary Pfeffer: Thank very much for being here.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
You may have heard lots of bad news about touch-screen voting machines. There have been concerns about security and the lack of a paper ballot. Arizona will start using new touch-screen voting machines this upcoming election. But our machines answer a lot of the criticism regarding touch-screen voting. We'll talk to Secretary of State Jan Brewer about the new machines, but first, here's a demonstration of how they work.

>> Tom Eschberger:
This is the auto mark system marketed by elections systems and software out of Omaha. In the past year there has been a lot of controversy regarding a voter verifiable ballot because of the emergence of touch-screen voting. A lot of people did not like the fact that there was no way to verify the ballot. There was charges of hacking and computer fraud. The auto mark addresses those issues. The voter comes into the polling place and they get a ballot here in Arizona just exactly like every other person. It doesn't matter if they are blind or have a physical impairment, mobility problems, as every other voter in the polling place, every other vote in Arizona. They come over to the auto mark, insert the ballot. It is scanning the ballot to make sure it's the right precinct. It's asking me to select the language. The machine will support about 7 languages, including Native American languages. So in this case, we'll select English, and I will enable for what the blind voter might here through

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Joining me now is Secretary of State Jan Brewer. Thank you for being here.

>> Jan Brewer:
My pleasure to be here with you.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
This is a pilot program that people in six different precincts here in the valley will get a chance to sort of see it.

>> Jan Brewer:
It's a pilot program. It's an absolutely wonderful pilot that Arizona is going to partake in. The only state in the country that is going to have access to this equipment for this election. So we're very, very pleased. We're on cutting edge. What it is, it's going to be just a wonderful opportunity for those that are hard of hearing and hearing impaired to go bee able to go in and vote privately and independently like you and I. The disability community was the driving force behind HAVA legislation, Help America Vote Act, because that's what they wanted to do. Along with that came a lot of election reform. This is one of the biggest changes we'll see.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
People who have heard the criticisms about touch screen ballots, how does this handle those questions?

>> Jan Brewer:
This piece of equipment is like a $5,000 pencil. What it does is allows these people to mark their ballots privately and independently. It comes back out, but they put the ballot that you and I vote on into another optical scan machine that you and I vote on, to tabulate it which creates the paper trail. So it solves all of that problem. It's not the Internet voting or the touch screen where all we've heard about in the paper where people are having problems. So we're very excited about this.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
The idea is that people have something in their hand, they can double check and make sure, and you avoid some of the questions that have come up in the past?

>> Jan Brewer:
Well, and on the equipment itself it double checks for the people it that can't read. It checks it to them and rereads it to them. It's an amazing piece of equipment.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
The idea is for this to be statewide by 2006?

>> Jan Brewer:
According to HAVA, we have to have the DREs, digital recording equipment in every precinct for the disabled to vote on. Everybody is going towards that way. Some people have implemented that, but in Arizona, I say we're going to move very, very cautiously because some people are very offended or they don't feel trust in the touch screen. This is a perfect answer for all of that.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
The idea by 2006 is that in each precinct there would be options?

>> Jan Brewer:
If we had the money, we could put -- we have budgeted that we will put one in each precinct. Therefore the disabled community could vote and if people weren't using it, you and I could vote on it, too.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Last question that comes down to the bottom line, what kind of money has to be spent to have this in place across the state?

>> Jan Brewer:
It's $5,000 per machine and we have 2,082 precincts in Arizona. Do you the math.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
It's a pretty big number.

>> Jan Brewer:
It is.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
We will see and keep all of us updated madam Secretary of State, keep us informed on this. We'll look forward to hearing more about it.

>> Jan Brewer:
Thank you.

>> Cary Pfeffer:
Thanks, Jan. Thank you very much for tuning into "Horizon." I'm Cary Pfeffer sitting in for Michael Grant. He will be back in this seat tomorrow night. We hope you have a great night.

 

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