Arizonans for Second Chances v. Hobbs

Summary

The Arizona Supreme Court accepted special-action jurisdiction and denied the petitioners’ request to require the Secretary of State to accept initiative signatures collected through E-Qual. The court held that the Arizona Constitution requires initiative signatures to be collected in person on paper, and that this requirement, as applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, did not impose a severe constitutional burden because reasonably diligent proponents could still obtain ballot access. The court also rejected the free-speech challenge and declined to separately address the state equal-protection and due-process claims because petitioners had not developed them. Justice Timmer concurred in part and dissented in part, concluding that the pandemic circumstances created a severe burden and that the wet-signature requirement was unconstitutional as applied.