Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio may be the most despicable law enforcement officer in the country. A Justice Department legal complaint against his office alleges widespread constitutional violations and mistreatment of Latinos, including an alleged assault against a pregnant Latina woman, widespread racial profiling and use of racial slurs, and incidents where “female Latina [limited English proficiency] prisoners have been forced to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation because of [the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's] failure to ensure that detention officers provide language assistance in such circumstances.”

He also may not be sheriff much longer, as an effort to recall Arpaio already collected 120,000 of the 335,000 signatures needed to force a recall election.

A bill that passed the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives could make Arpaio very difficult to defeat, however. Currently, a recalled official in Arizona faces a single election that could include challengers from their own party. The GOP bill would change this process so that the parties would choose their candidates in a primary election, and then Arpaio would likely face the winner of the Democratic primary in the general election.

The reason why this change matters is because Maricopa County is very Republican — Romney won the county by nearly 12 points — so it would be difficult for a Democrat to defeat Arpaio in a one-on-one race. At the same time, Maricopa’s Democratic voters could potentially join with a minority of the county’s Republicans in order to elect a Republican challenger to Arpaio. Indeed, this is exactly what happened when Democrats joined with some Republicans to remove anti-immigrant Senate President Russell Pearce (R) and replace him with Republican challenger Jerry Lewis in a 2011 recall election.

In other words, it may be the case that a majority of Maricopa’s voters want to remove Arpaio, and thus he could lose a recall election under the current rules. Under the GOP House’s bill, however, Arpaio would likely have a clear shot to survive the recall election so long as a majority of the county’s Republicans vote for him in the primary election.

A group behind the effort to recall infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpiao says it has gathered roughly one-third of the signatures required for a recall election.

So far, Respect Arizona has collected 120,000 of the 335,000 signatures needed by the May 30 cut-off date. The petition reads:

“We believe Sheriff Arpaio has failed to fulfill his duties as Maricopa County’s top law enforcement official. We believe Sheriff Arpaio has violated our trust and dignity as citizens because too many people have suffered as a result of Sheriff Arpaio’s abusive practices and policies. We believe business owners should not be unfairly harassed, workers unlawfully detained and families unjustly torn apart. We believe too many lawsuits have been filed and too many lives have been lost. We believe our children deserve a Sheriff that respects families, immigrants and Latinos. We believe Sheriff Arpaio should respect, defend and protect the rights guaranteed under the US Constitution because no one — not even a Sheriff — is above the law. No election victory can excuse or make right the unlawful acts that have occurred under Sheriff Arpaio’s leadership.”

Arpaio is best known as an anti-Latino, anti-immigration sheriff. Some of his antics include arming deputies with automatic weapons to prevent so-called “illegals” from escaping and recruiting Steven Segal to train vigilantes. He has also battled several lawsuits alleging he misused government funds and violated civil rights.

As the recall effort gains ground, Arpaio’s supporters are not idling. His Tea Party backers have named Arpaio’s opponents “domestic terrorists,” and formed “shadow armies” to combat the recall, placing volunteers in areas where Respect Arizona will gather signatures.

Voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchise low income, minority and student voters, all of which tend to vote for Democrats. So it is no surprise they’ve become the darling of Republican state lawmakers interested in making it easier to keep their jobs and elect other Republicans to office. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), however, will not benefit from the voter suppressing law he signed — at least during his own upcoming recall election — thanks to a pair of decisions handed down by two state appeals courts:

A pair of appeals court rulings this week make clear the state’s new voter ID law will remain suspended through the May and June recall elections.

One of the opinions, released Thursday, said there was “no realistic possibility” the case would be decided before the June 5 recall election against Gov. Scott Walker and some of his fellow Republicans.

Walker and Republicans in the Legislature last year approved a new law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls, but Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan issued an order temporarily blocking the requirement in a case brought by the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera.

A week later, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess permanently blocked the photo ID law because he said it violates the state constitution. That case was brought by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.

These decisions are good news for democracy in Wisconsin. Scott Walker has every right to remain governor if he faces the entire Wisconsin electorate and wins fair and square, but trying to rig the game by disenfranchising your opponent’s likely voters is beneath contempt.

It is also possible that Walker’s voter suppression law could even remain suspended through the November election. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin appeals courts typically take nine months or more to decide cases. Moreover, it is likely that the lower courts’ decisions striking down voter ID will be upheld by the courts of appeal. The text of the Wisconsin Constitution provides unusually strong protections against voter disenfranchisement, and Walker’s voter suppression law conflicts with at least 132 years of state supreme court precedent.

There is, of course, some risk that the increasingly partisan Wisconsin Supreme Court will ignore the state constitution, but even that is unlikely to happen until after the November election takes place. Earlier this month, the state justices turned down a request to fast-track the challenges to voter ID.