On the ballot this November is a measure that Vivian Serafin worries could uproot her family and the lives of other mixed-status families.
Serafin, a communications coordinator and community organizer for voting advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), is a US citizen. But she worries what Proposition 144, which would add an ID requirement for mail-in ballots, would mean for families like hers who are living in increased fear under President Donald Trump’s administration.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up arrests, Serafin and other advocates worry that Prop. 144 is deliberately confusing and could lead to eligible voters sitting out of elections out of fear of handing over government IDs.
This comes at a time when the Trump administration is targeting US citizens and even political foes as part of federal immigration enforcement actions.
A Republican-sponsored ballot referral, Prop. 144 would make a series of changes to state election law. What has advocates most alarmed is a new provision that, if approved in November, would require voters to submit IDs with their mail-in ballots—without offering a clear mechanism as to how the 80% of voters who rely on mail-in voting could do so.
How would Prop. 144 change Arizona’s voting system?
Arizona voters must currently show one form of photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID to vote in person, but IDs are not required for mail-in ballots. Instead, election officials compare the signature provided on the envelope with the signature on file. The system has been in place since voters approved Prop. 200 in 2004.
State Rep. Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), the GOP nominee for Arizona secretary of state, has led the push for a mail-in voter ID requirement ahead of the November election. Kolodin, an election denier, was admonished and placed on probation by the State Bar of Arizona for his role in lawsuits challenging the 2020 election. Despite GOP claims, voter fraud is exceedingly rare nationwide.
This isn’t the first attempt to add a voter ID requirement for mail-in ballots. In 2022, voters narrowly rejected Prop. 309, which would have added an ID requirement to the affidavit when voting by mail, along with prohibiting voters from using non-photo forms of ID when voting in person.
Lula Haji, policy manager for Our Voice, Our Vote, a voting rights group, told the Copper Courier in June that Prop. 144 could impact naturalized citizens or citizens with undocumented relatives. With ICE agents deployed nationwide and targeting long-term residents, Haji said naturalized citizens or mixed-status families might be too distrustful to mail the government their photo IDs or other sensitive information. That could mean eligible voters sitting out of elections out of fear.
Serafin, who comes from a mixed-status family, said she has “always recognized the privileges” that come with being a US citizen fully eligible to vote, but is worried this new measure could create barriers for eligible voters like herself.
“In mailing in your ID, not only is that handing over information and making yourself vulnerable, but it’s also creating an obstacle for people as well,” she said.
Voters from mixed-status households see recent measures around mail-in voting as a way to target legitimate voters and raise confusion about who is eligible to vote, Serafin said.
“By mailing in your ID and providing information to do what you earned the right to do, you’re putting yourself at risk,” Serafin said.
Serafin framed the obstacles to voting as an attempt by proponents of Prop. 144 to compensate for the political unpopularity of Republican ideas.
“They’re being bombarded by all these headlines and discussions about bills that are packaged as election integrity, but are really Trojan horses in order to disenfranchise many people and to threaten people of mixed status,” she said. “It is designed intentionally to confuse people and to scare people.”
Proponents of the ballot measure, such as the conservative nonprofit Arizona Free Enterprise Club, said that the idea that Prop. 144 will harm voting rights is “absurd.” They said it is intended to keep foreign billionaires from spending on US elections and produce faster and more reliable results for Arizona voters.
Arizona voters deserve “results on election night, or at least election week, not after Thanksgiving,” said the Club in a press release.
But opponents like Serafin believe there are ulterior motives behind the measure.
“We have seen time and time again that the Trump administration has made it clear that he is threatening folks regardless of their status,” Serafin said. “Even though they did things the right way, they could still be targeted.”
What other concerns do voting rights advocates have?
Republicans originally pushed for mail-in voting in Arizona in 1991. Since Trump’s evidence-free fraud claims around the 2020 election, some state Republicans have tried to dismantle the system—leading to the state legislature placing Prop. 144 on the ballot as a constitutional amendment to overhaul mail-in requirements.
Alex Gulotta, Arizona’s director for All Voting Is Local, said that the measure is seen as a backdoor way of attacking mail-in voting.
“They don’t expressly say ‘We’re trying to do away with mail-in voting,’ because the voters would vote that down, and they know it,” Gulotta said. “So they’re trying to create barriers that will make mail-in voting unreliable because they don’t want to have the people’s voices heard in this way.”
Gulotta compared the language of Prop. 144 to that of Prop. 309.
“This is just another Prop. 309 do-over,” he said. “The voters voted this down because last time they were specific about how hard they were going to make mail-in voting, so this time they couched it in different language and made it look a little bit different, but it would achieve the same purpose.”
According to Gulotta, Arizona has done an effective job of encouraging voter turnout by increasing the number of ways people can vote, and Prop. 144 would limit that access.
“You can vote by mail. You can return that ballot by mail. You can drop it off at a drop box if you don’t want to return it by mail,” Gulotta said. “These are people who believe that the only people who should get to vote are the people who can show up on Election Day and stand in line, and have the time and resources to do that.”
