The 2018 midterm election had historic turnout by nearly every metric. Just the number of early ballots cast alone outnumbered all ballots — early and in person — in the 2014 midterm election.
In most states, it takes some work to be added to the early voter rolls. Out-of-country military personnel, voters who are housebound or can demonstrate a need can receive an early ballot but most voters are restricted to voting in person on election day.
Some states also allow early voting in person in the days before an election to help those who may have to work or otherwise can’t get to the polls. But Arizona simply requires a voter fill out a form to request an early ballot.
Arizona’s county recorders offices have long advocated for making voting easier by offering early ballots to anyone and everyone who wanted one. They say the early voting process increases turnout. It allows voters to research candidates and legislation from their home as they fill out their ballot instead of arriving to a polling place on election day and casting votes for candidates and propositions they may not have been aware of.
It also gives county recorders weeks more time to start tabulations rather than counting millions of ballots on the day of the election and trying to get results posted within two hours of polls closing.
But new Senate Bill 1046, sponsored by Arizona State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita [R-District 23], would prohibit voters who are able to receive and fill out an early ballot from dropping off that ballot at a polling place on election day. They would have to mail the ballot back to their county recorder by the day before the election.
If an early voter forgets to mail their ballot by election day and still wants to vote, they would have to wait in line with other in-person, day-of voters but could only fill out a provisional ballot.
Proponents argue this would encourage early voters to mail back their ballots early, which would speed up tabulation and get results posted sooner. They also argue that the long delays in the 2018 midterms were due to a large number of early ballots dropped off on election day.
Ugenti-Rita’s bill doesn’t really address the problem we witnessed in the 2018 midterm election. Compared to 2014 midterms, there were fewer early ballots in 12 of Arizona’s 15 counties. Yavapai and Yuma saw slight increases but Maricopa County had an increase of more than 100,000 early voters.
Maricopa County’s entire computer system went down for 20 to 25 minutes around 11 a.m. on election day. Maricopa’s “print on demand” computer system that prints ballots tailored to each voter’s precinct was also up and down around the county for several hours, forcing voters to fill out pre-printed provisional ballots.
Yet for most of Arizona, there weren’t long lines. Most of the delays were in Maricopa and Pinal counties, i.e., Phoenix and Tucson, where most of the state’s population resides. The rest of the state’s counties reported more voters than normal but were not struck with the same systemic problems.
Opponents fear the bill would suppress voter turnout. According to the Arizona Republic, four of the five districts most negatively affected are held by Republicans, including Ugenti-Rita’s own, so its odd that Republican senators would be willing to support a bill that could cost them their slim majority in the 2020 election.
It would seem the best option would be for these big counties to address their election problems directly without legislators overhauling the entire state system that otherwise ran smoothly. But many state legislators seem to think Arizona’s northern boundary is New River and the wildlands to the north are marked with “Here be dragons.”
A problem left unaddressed by SB 1046 is that voters could still mail early ballots on the Monday before election day and they would take two to three days — sometimes four in more rural counties — to reach their county recorder, meaning a glut of last-minute but still acceptable early ballots could still delay final tabulations for several days.
As a news agency, we would love to have ballots counted by the end of election day so we could post the results and inform our readers, but SB 1046 won’t make that possible.
SB 1046 passed the Senate committee 4-3 along party lines and it now heads to the full senate.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
