PHOENIX (CN) — Arizona Republicans Wednesday advanced a bill that would require early voters in the state to submit their ballot at voting centers on the Friday before Election Day, saying this would reduce the time it takes to tabulate and report statewide election results.
Four Republican senators on the state Senate’s Judiciary and Elections Committee supported the bill Wednesday, while three Democrats on the committee voted against the bill, fearing it would threaten voting accessibility.
“I committed to making sure Arizona could be a state just like so many other states who have election results the night of, instead of being the state who delivered their electoral results last,” Senate President Warren Petersen told the committee.
That’s why he introduced Senate Bill 1011, which requires early ballots to be dropped over at voting centers by 7 p.m. the Friday before Election Day, rather than by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
However, the bill would also allow county recorders to distribute early ballots to voters two days earlier than they currently do. This would technically give voters 29 days to cast their ballots rather than 27, because voters who miss the drop-off deadline for voting centers would still be allowed to drop their ballot off in person to the county recorder’s office.
“It’s an honest objective,” said Petersen, a Republican from Gilbert. “At minimum, it’s equal access.”
State law prohibits county recorders from tabulating election results until polls closes on Election Day. But county recorders can begin the process of verifying signatures on early ballot envelopes as they are received. If early ballots are dropped off on Election Day, election workers need to spend extra time completing signature verification — the lengthiest portion of ballot tabulation — before the votes can be counted, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap explained Wednesday.
If county recorders are given time to complete signature verification on all early ballots over the weekend leading up to Election Day, the tabulation process would move much more quickly, he said.
“Let the recorders catch up so we can get the results to you the night of,” Heap told the committee.
Arizona took eight days to certify its election results in 2024, and took two weeks to do so in 2022. Heap said delayed results significantly contribute to public mistrust of an election’s integrity.
State Senator Analise Ortiz and other Democrats fear that the change in ballot due dates will confuse voters, who may be rendered unable to vote if they still try to drop an early ballot off at a voting center on Election Day.
“This is an absolute atrocious attempt to make it harder to drop off early ballots,” the Democrat from Phoenix said as she voted “no.”
If voters are told on Election Day that they can’t drop their ballot off and instead need to present identification to fill out a fresh ballot on site, some voters, especially in rural communities, may be forced to drive more than 90 minutes each way to go home and gather necessary documentation, state Senator Theresa Hatathlie said. Furthermore, their county recorder’s office may be too far away. If no funding for public education is included, she said, the bill may have dire effects.
Petersen said the bill will allow for additional voting centers to be established, but Hatathlie, a Democrat from the Navajo Nation, said some rural areas don’t have additional buildings to place more voting centers to begin with.
Other opponents of the bill who signed in to speak, including George Diaz representing the Secretary of State’s office, warned that cutting off the time to drop off early ballots would increase, and in some cases double, the length of lines at in-person voting sites on Election Day. But Petersen said the bill addresses that issue by opening up additional voting centers.
Democrats also complained that the bill includes no funding, but Heap said that wouldn’t be necessary. Because election workers would need to do signature verification regardless, doing so a few days ahead of time, if anything, would cost the counties less, he said.
The bill will now advance to the Senate floor for a full vote.