Show Me the Ballots! | Washington Monthly

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Public trust in government institutions is now at a near-historic low; just 20 percent of Americans say they're very confident in the country's elections, according to a January 2022 ABC/Ipsos poll.
57% : If anything, his experience on the chaotic front lines of election management has underscored his long-standing belief that the best way to revive public confidence in elections in this age of distrust is by embracing a position ofradical transparency.
56% : Fontes, then the newly elected Maricopa County recorder, was talking to a former state election director and UN election observer, who was praising, of all places, Mongolia.
51% : Earlier this year, Fontes, in his new position as Arizona's secretary of state, and Bennett, who was reelected as state senator in 2022 after nearly 15 years out of office, emerged as a powerful but unlikely duo on Arizona's public stage.
48% : But if those years were bracing, Fontes, who became Arizona's secretary of state earlier this year, is not cowed.
47% : But if Fontes, along with a growing group of Republican election officials who deal day to day with election deniers, see public ballot images as a policy no-brainer, the idea has faced strong headwinds in state legislatures.
40% : Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs, who had been Fontes's predecessor as secretary of state, vetoed it, citing many of the progressives' concerns.
36% : The point of making ballot images public is not to convince the die-hard Trumpers, says Ken Bennett, a mild-mannered Republican Arizona state senator and former secretary of state, who sponsored state legislation in 2023 to make ballot images public.

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