By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
It’s pretty rare in politics to find a policy that is considered across the political spectrum as a true win, win. In the most recent primary election, Maricopa County implemented a new process that may actually be considered a win, win, win for elections.
Win number one: more options for voters, not fewer.
Win number two: faster election results.
Win number three: more integrity in the process.
What is it? On-site tabulation of early ballots. That’s right, a policy we spearheaded with Senator J.D. Mesnard in 2022. Then, it was SB1362. It was introduced on the heels of an election taking weeks to get election results and one of the largest drivers of the delay were early ballots that voters did not mail back, did not drop off during early voting, but instead held onto until election day and dropped them off en masse at polling locations. Hundreds of thousands of ballots dropped off, that later had to be transported to the county, signature verified, cured, removed from the envelope, and finally tabulated.
That wasn’t novel, and you can see why so many would choose to vote this way. For some, they simply forgot to return their ballot in time. Now it is election day, they don’t want to wait in line to fill out a two-page ballot again, so they drop it off. Or they filled out their ballot at home, and they don’t trust the mail to get it delivered and would prefer the assurance of dropping it off themselves. Or they like filling out their ballot at home, but they also like to go to the polling place on election day. Whatever the reason, a large portion of voters choose to do it every year. Most of them do not realize it delays results for weeks.
SB1362 began as a mandate on the counties, requiring them to provide this option to voters. Believe it or not, the counties fought it tooth and nail the entire session. Eventually, the bill was amended to make it optional for counties to implement. They still opposed it. Why? They knew that if voters found out that their county officials could be doing this but are refusing to do so, voters would get mad at them.
But that isn’t all…
