Let Arizona voters decide about an early ballot cutoff

Robert Robb

SUBMITTED PHOTO

The issue of how long it takes to count the votes in Arizona has festered for a while. A Friday cutoff for an early ballot drop off would speed up the counting, perhaps considerably. The Legislature should put the question before the voters of whether they would prefer the quicker results such a cutoff could provide or the continued convenience of dropping off an early ballot at any polling place until they close on Election Day.”

Ordinarily, I don’t like the Arizona Legislature punting a policy decision to the voters via a referendum. Nor as an attempted bypass of a gubernatorial veto, as GOP legislators did to excess in the 2024 election.

Generally, the deliberations and machinations of representative government are preferable to plebiscitary democracy. That’s particularly true in Arizona, given the voter protection provision of our state Constitution. Under that provision, it is very hard for the Legislature and the governor to modify anything passed by voters in a ballot measure. There is no such thing as an immaculate conception in statutory law.

There is, however, one live issue that is an exception to this general indisposition to punting a policy decision to voters via referendum: whether to speed up counting the votes in an election by curtailing the ability to drop off early ballots up to the close of the polls on Election Day. This is a trade-off between speed in knowing the outcome and the convenience of casting a ballot. There are no real principles at stake. Nor anything really to deliberate about. It’s something appropriate to have the body politic as a whole decide.

However, the referral should be limited to this discrete question purely presented: whether to speed up the count by curtailing the convenience of just dropping off an early ballot until the close of the polls. It shouldn’t be muddled up with other election provisions, as was the bill (House Bill 2703) that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed and as is the referendum (House Concurrent Resolution 2013) currently making its way through the Legislature.

The ability to drop off early ballots at polling places until they close on Election Day is the primary reason it takes so long to finalize results in Arizona elections. In the 2024 election, there were approximately 265,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day. This is a particularly popular choice in Maricopa County, which was responsible for 80% of those ballots.

The signature verification issue

The legitimacy of an early ballot is established through signature verification. Signature verification of these so-called late early ballots can’t begin until the day after Election Day, which is dedicated to counting early ballots for which signatures have been verified and same-day votes. After Election Day, there is only so much capacity to verify signatures on the late early ballots, so results drip out day by day.

The proposed reform is to only allow early ballots to be dropped off at any polling place until the Friday before the election, which gives time for signature verification to occur for tabulation on Election Day. Early ballots could still be cast in the following four days. But that would require showing identification at the polling place in lieu of signature verification, rather than just dropping off the ballot.

I confess to being indifferent about all this. Arizona elections aren’t, as GOP legislators are claiming, a national laughingstock. And it’s almost cute for MAGA legislators to be expressing concern about national reputational risks, something that hardly seems to concern them otherwise.

I don’t think there’s a problem with waiting a week or so to learn the outcome of close races. However, I do credit at least somewhat the argument that the delay provides space for the conspiracy theorists to spin their tales.

New rules wouldn’t disenfranchise voters

If voting an early ballot in the last four days of the election required possibly waiting in line to show identification, there would be some percentage of the late early ballot voters who don’t end up voting. That’s particularly true of the 265,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day itself.

However, it is inaccurate to claim, as reform opponents do, that these voters would have been disenfranchised. They would be fully eligible to cast a ballot. And even with this reform, voting in Arizona would be easier and more accessible than almost any other place in human history. If the body politic as a whole would prefer quicker results at the cost of losing the convenience of just dropping off a ballot in the last four days of an election, that’s not an unjust or unreasonable trade-off.

The size of the diminished participation and its political effect are impossible to ascertain or even speculate knowledgeably about. It used to be that marginal voters tended to lean toward the Democrats. Today, however, both parties have sizable constituencies of marginal voters. A Friday cutoff for dropping off early ballots wouldn’t clearly help or hurt either party.

Other election provisions muddle the issue

Based upon Gov. Hobbs’s veto message for HB 2703, this is not an issue on which there could be a compromise if GOP legislators would just be reasonable and work with her. Although she expressed support for a Friday cutoff for dropping off early ballots, one of her accompanying demands was for same-day voter registration, in which someone who wasn’t previously registered could just show up at the polls on Election Day and vote. A secure election requires a vetted voter registry in advance. Other Hobbs demands were also problematic.

On the other hand, GOP legislators are muddling the issue with other election provisions in their measures, such as requiring those on the permanent Early Voting list to confirm their address every election cycle in Maricopa and Pima counties and every other election cycle in the balance of the state. Other unrelated provisions include eliminating the ability of schools to beg off being a polling place and a convoluted process of policing foreign monies somehow being used in election administration.

The issue of how long it takes to count the votes in Arizona has festered for a while. A Friday cutoff for an early ballot drop off would speed up the counting, perhaps considerably.

The Legislature should put the question before the voters of whether they would prefer the quicker results such a cutoff could provide or the continued convenience of dropping off an early ballot at any polling place until they close on Election Day. And not muddle up that choice with other election provisions.

Editor's note: Retired Arizona journalist Robert Robb opines about politics and public policy on Substack. Reach him at robtrobb@gmail.com. Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.