Will the Arizona Secure Elections Act protect our voting process?

Kimmie Dillon, Anna Pingel: Arizona deserves secure, orderly elections

OPINION — Every election cycle, Arizonans brace for the same familiar headlines: long lines at polling places, tabulation delays stretching late into the night, emergency court filings and national media attention focused — once again — on Maricopa County.

These problems are no longer isolated incidents, they’ve become a pattern. And regardless of party affiliation, this recurring chaos undermines confidence in our elections and weakens trust in our democratic system. 

Arizona voters deserve better. We believe the Arizona Secure Elections Act offers a serious, comprehensive path forward — and it deserves broad public support. 

Arizona is not lacking civic participation. Our voters are engaged, turnout is strong and access to the ballot is already expansive. What we lack is a system that delivers timely, transparent results under clear, consistently enforced rules.

Too often, shifting standards and last-minute ballot processing have left voters frustrated and suspicious, even when no wrongdoing is proven. The ASEA addresses these concerns directly by strengthening voter identification requirements, making voting by mail more secure and banning foreign money from influencing Arizona elections. 

These are not extreme ideas. They are commonsense reforms designed to put voters — not bureaucratic confusion or partisan litigation — at the center of the process. 

Consider voter identification. Requiring government-issued ID to cast a ballot is a straightforward way to protect our elections. Arizonans are accustomed to showing ID to drive, travel or complete basic financial transactions. Applying that same standard to our elections should not be contested, and this policy is supported by over 80% of Americans, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Strong voter ID laws are not about exclusion; they are about integrity. 

Mail voting presents a more complicated challenge. While convenient, Arizona’s current system has become increasingly difficult to administer efficiently. Ballots continue arriving after Election Day, signature verification overwhelms county staff and final results remain uncertain for days or even weeks. This law enacts reasonable guardrails: voters must confirm their mail-ballot delivery address each year, and early ballots must be cast by 7 p.m. the Friday before Election Day. 

These changes preserve access while restoring order. Arizona would still offer weeks of early voting, no-excuse mail ballots and widespread in-person voting options. What would change is predictability. Election officials would have enough time to process ballots. Voters would know exactly when and how to cast their vote. And the state could finally deliver timely results without constant crisis management. 

Critics argue these reforms shorten voting windows and risk exclusion of certain voters. But Arizona already provides more voting options than most states, and this wouldn’t eliminate early voting or mail voting — it would bring structure and accountability to a system that has grown unwieldy.  

Arizona has endured years of election dysfunction with no meaningful resolution.  

At its core, the ASEA respects voters’ time and intelligence. Clear rules and firm deadlines reduce confusion and allow election workers to focus on running smooth elections rather than responding to crises. Confidence in elections is not built through press conferences or lawsuits, but through systems that work consistently — election after election. 

Just as importantly, this decision will not be made behind closed doors. After Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a previous version of the legislation, lawmakers chose a more democratic path: placing it directly on the ballot. That means Arizona voters — not politicians — will have the final say.  

If voters believe the reforms go too far, they can reject them. But they deserve the opportunity to weigh in. 

Arizona has become a cautionary tale when it comes to election administration. It does not have to remain one. Other states have demonstrated that secure elections, broad access and timely results can coexist. With ASEA, Arizona can learn from what works and finally move beyond the cycle of chaos. 

Supporting the Arizona Secure Elections Act is a vote for clarity, accountability and trust. These are not partisan values. They are democratic ones. And they are essential if Arizona is to restore confidence in its elections and strengthen its democracy for the long term. 

Kimmie Dillon chairs the America First Policy Institute’s Arizona state chapter. Anna Pingel is the institute’s secure elections campaign director. 

Stephen Richer: Arizona Secure Elections Act isn’t the ‘solution’ voters need

OPINION — Arizonans deserve faster election results. I’ve made this plea every year since 2022.

But the Arizona Secure Elections Act — HCR 2001 — isn’t a solution. It’s a problem. It could effectively end Arizona’s robust, no-excuse vote-by-mail system that has been in place since 1992 and is now used by over 75% of Arizona voters.

The proposed act begins by calling for laws that already exist. That’s because the act is more about politics than it is policy, and its sponsor, state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, is seemingly OK with misleading Arizonans.

For example, the act stipulates that, “only citizens in the United States shall be eligible to register and vote.” But that’s long been the law in Arizona. And since 2004, we’ve required documented proof of citizenship. 

The ASEA also requires that “votes shall not be cast or accepted after poll closing times on election day.” Again, already the law in Arizona.

This type of careless or indifferent drafting becomes more problematic when the act turns to mail voting. Section C of the act reads: “Concurrent with casting a ballot, all qualified electors shall be required to provide a government issued identification.”

Currently, Arizonans who vote by mail simply put their completed ballot in the return envelope assigned to them, and then sign the outside of the return envelope. Election workers compare that signature with signatures from the voter’s historic record. 

That’s how we’ve been doing it for a long time. That’s how other mail-vote-heavy states do it, including Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California.

But your signature isn’t “government issued identification.” That language means the current system will end, and we don’t know what will replace it

It might be that you’ll have to include a photocopy of your driver’s license inside the return envelope, right next to your marked ballot. Or you might have to write down the last four digits of your Social Security number on your ballot envelope, but it’s unclear if that would satisfy “providing” a government issued identification.

It’s also unclear what is meant by “concurrent with casting a ballot.” Does this mean that you’ll have to show your driver’s license to a post carrier as you drop your ballot in the mail?   Does this mean you’ll have to stand in an identification line to drop off your mail ballot at a voting location?

The bill’s sponsor, Kolodin, has been pressed for answers to these questions. So far, he’s punted. But they’re hugely important questions and need to be addressed now.

Either way, under the ASEA mail voting as it currently exists will be gone. And the proposed act might not even speed up results. Election workers currently use your signature to verify your identity. Will that process get slower or faster by whatever is required in the future? Nobody knows. And will these new burdens on mail voting cause more people to vote in-person on election day, and thereby cause longer lines? Nobody knows.

Again, Arizonans deserve faster results. To make that happen, we just need a simple bill that requires voters to return their early mail ballots … early.  

We don’t need an overly-politicized bill that deceives voters as to the current state of the law and threatens to end mail voting as we know it.

Stephen Richer is a former elected Maricopa County recorder. He is now a legal scholar at the Cato Institute and a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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