By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Republican senators advanced changes in election laws and procedures on Thursday that officials who run those elections said actually could disenfranchise some voters.
The heart of HCR 2056 is an effort to get final election results in a more timely fashion. It proposes to do that by requiring that ballots be counted at each polling location and restricting when and where Arizonans can drop off their early ballots if they haven't put them in the mail.
All that is designed to avoid a process that now can take weeks, and not just because ballots have to be transported to a central counting location. What also can delay results in verifying the signatures on those early ballot envelopes is that they can be delivered by voters to polling places right up to 7 p.m. on Election Day.
But Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told members of the Senate Elections Committee there are a series of problems with the proposal, ranging from insufficient funding to purchase all those tabulators that will now be needed at each polling location -- actually, two at each site -- to what he said is less convenience for some individuals who will lose their ability to drop off their early ballots at vote centers on Saturday, Sunday or Monday before the election.
What's in the measure still would allow Arizonans to bring their early ballots to polling places on Election Day.
But the could not be simply dropped off, as is now the practice. Instead, the individual would have to first stand in line to present identification.
That does eliminate the need to later verify the signature on the envelope. But Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, said that in-person verification process will itself create long lines at the polls. But Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said it is the current system that creates the lines.
He argued that is it the people who show up at the polls on Election Day with their early ballots that gums up the works. Kavanagh said what's in the measure will encourage people to instead drop them in the mail and not wait until the last minute.
The committee approved the measure on a 4-3 party-line vote. But even Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, himself a former secretary of state, conceded there are issues that need to be resolved before the measure goes to the full Senate.
"This is a work in progress,'' he said.
Working out the problems now could be crucial.
Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, has crafted the measure so lawmakers could send it directly to the ballot. That bypasses the need to get buy-in from Gov. Katie Hobbs, herself a former secretary of state.
But if it is approved in November, making fixes becomes difficult. That's because the Arizona Constitution prohibits lawmakers from altering anything enacted by voters except with a three-fourths vote -- and only if the change is found to "further the purpose'' of the original law.
All that assumes that the changes really are necessary. Sen. Brian Fernandez, D-Yuma, said he doesn't hear any calls from constituents that they want what Rogers is proposing.
"I think this is just a few people that are on the extreme that want to figure out a way to make it more difficult for people to do what they should be able to do in an easy manner, which is vote,'' he said.
And Sen. Anna Hernandez, D-Phoenix, said the measure that was approved by the committee was "pieced together off of conspiracy theories and people that aren't willing to accept voter results.''
What's behind the bill is the desire to speed up the tabulation process. And a key piece of that is the requirement to count the ballots at local precincts or vote centers.
the mandate to tabulate ballots at local precincts or vote centers.
Fontes said seven counties already do that. But eight -- Apache, Coconino, Gila, Mohave, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz and Yavapai -- do not, shipping all the ballots to central locations to be counted.
"You're asking all of those counties to completely shift the way that they do everything,'' he told lawmakers. And, that, Fontes said, costs money.
Consider Coconino County. He said what's in HCR 2056 would require two tabulators at each require two tabulators at each vote center, one for people voting in person and one for those bringing in early ballots.
With 99 precincts and machines costing up to $10,000, that approaches $1 million. But the $11 million in the measure is to be divided up proportionately by population, meaning it would get only around $230,000.
And Fontes said that does not consider the extra staffing needed at each site to do tabulation, separate from the regular poll workers, plus costs for things like subscriptions for needed software.
He said there even would be expenses for the seven counties that do on-site tabulation, as the measure would require two tabulators at each site, one as now for the people who vote in person and a second for those early ballots.
Then there's eliminating the ability of people to simply drop off their early ballots any voting center at any time before the end of Election Day.
HCR 2056 would say the only way that can happen after 7 p.m. the Friday before Election Day -- other than in-person voting, with ID on Election Day itself -- is by taking them to the county election office. That, Fontes said, will result in inconvenience to voters.
"If you live in Lake Havasu City, you're going to have to drive to Kingman,'' he said.
"If you live in Casa Grande, you're going to have to drive all the way to Florence,'' Fontes continued. "And if you're at the bottom of the Grand Canyon you're going to have to come out of the Grand Canyon and drive to Flagstaff.''
Rogers called concerns about how this would affect those who wait until the last minute "specious.''
"There's a whole month that someone can mail in his ballot,'' she said.
Fontes also said the wording of all this, which was not made public until Monday, is filled with "ambiguities,'' the kind he said will "generate a lot of (billable) hours'' by attorneys that litigate election issues.
"We just respectfully believe this pie is not fully cooked,'' he said.
"I see this as a solution asking for a problem,'' Fontes continued. "It ain't broke.''
But what is broke, as far as some Republicans are concerned, is the amount of time it takes to get final election results, something Kavanagh attributes to how early ballots are now handled.
He pointed out that once an early ballot is dropped off, something that can happen even on Election Day, then it needs to be shipped to a central processing center. But even then, the envelope cannot be opened to count the votes inside until the signature on the outside is compared with others already on file with county election officials.
Meanwhile those central locations are tallying the votes cast in person on Election Day.
That, Kavanagh said, becomes a problem when you have a situation like what happened in 2022 when more than 290,000 residents of Maricopa County alone decided not to put their early ballots in the mail or place them in drop boxes, deciding instead to take them directly to polling places.
That left results unclear for more than a week. And that delay in final tallies only added fuel to claims -- some still being pursued nearly two years later by those who lost the election in court challenges -- that there was something amiss in the process.
What's also in the measure are two pages of provisions that bar election officials from accepting any funds from foreign entities to help administer an election. Only thing is, Cazares-Kelly said, counties already can't accept such help.
"It's not a thing,'' she said. "I think it's an easy sell for the uninformed voter,'' she said, designed to attract votes for the measure in November regardless of how people feel about what else is in the package.
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