Arizona House Republican Backs Legislation to Limit Ballot Access: ‘Everybody Shouldn’t Be Voting’

A Republican lawmaker in Arizona spoke in support of a state bill that would restrict voting access, saying that “everybody shouldn’t be voting” and that “we have to look at the quality of votes,” CNN reported Thursday.

“There’s a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans,” State Rep. John Kavanaugh said, while discussing one of dozens of proposed voting rights measures in Arizona, according to CNN. “Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they’re willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote – but everybody shouldn’t be voting.”

“Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means they’re totally uninformed on the issues,” Kavanagh added. “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well.”

Kavanagh, a Republican, chairs the Government and Higher Education Committee in the Arizona House of Representatives.

Arizona has introduced 24 bills restricting voting rights since January, according to CNN. Most of them aim to limit access to absentee voting.

President Joe Biden won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election, when some 80% of Arizonans voted by mail, according to CNN. Biden is only the second Democrat to win the state since 1948.

According to the Brennan Center, legislators in 43 states are pushing more than 250 bills that would limit access to voting. Since the 2020 election, former President Trump and his supporters have continued to spread baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, despite the fact that state and federal judges have dismissed more than 50 lawsuits challenging the election results on the basis of voter fraud.

Watch CNN’s John Avlon report on the voting debate above.