PHOENIX - Pinal County does not have to allow its residents to vote this year at any place they show up.

In an order late Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court said there was no reasonable way for County Recorder Dana Lewis to change procedures with Election Day now less than two weeks away. The justices said that Pinal County Superior Court Judge Delia Neal did not err in refusing to immediately order the change.

But the high court left unresolved, at least for the moment, the question of whether Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who had sued the county, is legally correct in his conclusion that the county must set up what are "voting centers'' where all registered voters can cast a ballot, regardless of where in the county they live.

Neal had, in fact, decided that Fontes was correct.

In a ruling earlier this month, she cited a provision in the state Elections Procedures Manual that mandates each voting location have an "accessible voting device'' that contains all ballot styles of every precinct. And that device produces a ballot specific to that voter's address, which is counted.

In general, what is in the manual, crafted by Fontes with approval from Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, has the force of law.

But Neal refused the bid by Fontes to order the county to implement the change now, finding "that there is unacceptable risk to undertake (Fontes' requested) change at this very late date.'' And the trial judge concluded that at this stage of the election "the requested remedy for non-compliance with the EPM is impracticable.''

Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer, writing for the high court, said that she and her colleagues have no choice but to back Neal's decision.

"Unless the trial judge either made a mistake of law or clearly erred in finding the facts or applying them to the legal criteria for granting an injunction, we must affirm,'' she wrote.

Some counties have used voting centers for years, allowing any voter to cast a ballot at any location. That can happen because on-site computers can link to a central location to determine where that person lives and print out a ballot specific to that voter, with only the appropriate choices for things like legislative, supervisor, justice of the peace and school board candidates.

Fontes issued an updated Elections Procedures Manual shortly before Christmas last year with the mandate.

Despite that, Pinal supervisors decided in the spring to keep the current system. Attorney Brett Johnson, who represents the supervisors, said they have that legal right, saying there are advantages to using a precinct-based polling place model.

He cited a 2021 ruling of the U.S. Supreme court - one actually out of Arizona - that concluded such a system "helps to distribute voters more evenly among polling places and thus reduces wait times'' and they are placed "closer to voter residences'' than voting center locations.

Johnson also said the county makes active efforts to ensure residents know where their assigned polling places are.

The other side of it, however, is that if someone shows up at the wrong precinct and insists on voting, he or she is given a provisional ballot - one which is not tallied. That, Fontes argued, improperly disenfranchises some people.

But Fontes did not sue until September.

Neal concluded earlier this month that, legally speaking, he is correct in concluding that the supervisors were acting illegally. But she refused to order the board to change procedures, citing the late date.

That brought Fontes to the Supreme Court.

Friday's order still leaves unresolved what happens in future elections.

Strictly speaking, while the Supreme Court upheld Neal's refusal to force the county to change its procedures immediately, the justices never actually addressed the question of whether she properly concluded that the county's refusal to implement vote centers was illegal.

Johnson, in his own filings with the high court, did not deny what is in the Elections Procedures Manual.

But he said that is contrary to what in state law - which he said trumps the manual - and that Fontes did an end-run around the law by "surreptitiously'' inserting language into the manual to try to force every county to effectively do just that. And that, he said, is beyond Fontes' authority.

"The secretary believes, as a policy matter, that voting centers are preferable to polling places,'' Johnson told the justices. But he said that does not give him the right to impose that on every county "through obscure regulations buried in the Elections Procedures Manual.''

He said the board of supervisors - and not the secretary - has the ultimate authority to decide whether to establish voting centers.

Whether he is right, however, is yet to be decided.

In issuing the order late Friday, Timmer said she and her colleagues were not ruling whether what Fontes put in the manual conflicts with state law. That will have to be settled at some future date.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.