By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Republican lawmakers are wagering that Arizona voters care more about prompt election results than they do about being able to drop off their early ballots at the last minute.
With Hobbs set to veto their legislation to move up ballot deadlines, the GOP is now going to take its case to the public. They are advancing HCR 2013 which would do pretty much the same things as HB 2703, the bill the governor said she found unacceptable.
The House voted 33-26 Monday for the measure, sending it to the Senate.
What is important is that Republicans are making the changes in a way to give voters the last word. And, more to the point, there's is nothing Hobbs can do to keep the issue off the 2026 ballot.
The governor, who made it clear last week she would veto HB 2703, has repeatedly said she does want timely election results. After all, she said, it took a week for Arizonans to find out that she defeated Republican Kari Lake in the 2022 gubernatorial race.
But the problem, Hobbs said, is the trade-off: Voters would have only until Friday to drop off their ballot envelopes at polling places.
What that earlier deadline would do, according to proponents, is ensure the outcome of all races -- including close ones -- would be known within a day or so.
So how important is that?
"That's never something that I cared a lot about,'' said Rep. Alexander Kolodin, one of the architects of the GOP plan.
"But I've realized over the years that the public differs,'' the Scottsdale Republican told Capitol Media Services on Monday.
Kolodin also dismissed comments by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who also opposes HB 2703, that most voters seem content to wait for official results. Instead, Aaron Thacker, the secretary's press aide, said the only people who seem to want early results are the TV networks so they can "call'' races, something that has no actual official meaning.
"It really impacts voter satisfaction when ballots are being counted for three weeks,'' Kolodin said.
"Voters want quicker gratification,'' he continued. "They don't like the anxiety of not knowing.''
Put another way, Koloding said, government -- including the agencies responsible for voting -- is a customer service business.
"So, if the customer is dissatisfied by something, then it's a real issue that needs to be addressed,'' he said.
And that's precisely what HCR 2013 would allow voters -- the customers -- to decide.
Kolodin said Republicans don't believe voters will side with Hobbs and conclude that requiring early ballots to be dropped off Friday before the election -- the deadline is now 7 p.m. on Election Day -- is not worth getting faster election results.
"We polled this and asked them what the customer thought of that trade-off,'' he said. "And the customers overwhelmingly want to make that trade-off.''
What causes the delay is that the early ballots dropped off at polling places on Election Day cannot be tabulated until the signatures on the envelopes are verified. And that can't occur until they are brought back to county election offices, the envelopes opened if the signatures match, and then fed through counting equipment.
That option has proved popular among at least some voters: In 2024 nearly 265,000 Arizonans did exactly that out of more than 3.4 million votes cast overall.
What Republicans are proposing is a bit more complicated than a Friday deadline.
Strictly speaking, HCR 2013 still would allow people who hadn't made up their minds early enough to drop their ballots in the mail to take them to polling places on Election Day.
Now, however, they can simply park, run in, put that early ballot in a box, and leave. Under the GOP plan, they would have to first produce identification when dropping off their ballots, the same thing now required of those who want to vote at the polls.
Democrats say that will only create lines even longer than have occurred at recent elections.
In 2022 for example, nearly 470,000 people out of nearly 2.6 million who voted chose to cast their ballots at a polling place. And losing Republican candidates Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh argued after that election that they would have won except for the claim that some of their supporters left without voting after being deterred by long lines and wait times.
Kolodin brushed aside that concern.
"It's not the same line,'' he said. "It's just a line to check your ID and drop it off.''
Anyway, Kolodin said, he doesn't see that possibility deterring people from voting for HCR 2013.
"On the basis of the data we have, we think we're in a strong position to get this across the line,'' he said.
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