An election recount law passed by the Arizona legislature in 2022 could cause election officials to miss key primary and general election deadlines this year — and even put the state’s presidential election votes in jeopardy. But, so far, there has been little action at the Arizona Capitol to address the problem.
Former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed a new law, which passed with both Republican and Democratic votes, that raised the margin of victory in elections that would spark a recount from one-tenth of 1% to one-half of 1%.
Once a Republican stronghold, Arizona is increasingly being referred to by pundits and politicos alike as a “purple” state due to the increasing prevalence of tightly-contested elections in the state. There were three recounts in Arizona in 2022, and election officials anticipate more recounts could occur under the new law.
In a letter sent to Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and state lawmakers, the Arizona Association of Counties and County Supervisors Association of Arizona wrote that the time it takes to conduct additional recounts will likely delay election officials’ efforts to meet other election administration deadlines, like a September deadline to mail out ballots to overseas military members and a separate December deadline to certify Arizona’s electors in the U.S. Presidential election.
County officials wrote that it takes at least 19 days after the Aug. 6 primary election to prepare UOCAVA ballots to mail to deployed military members and their families by a Sept. 21 deadline. Too many labor-intensive recounts — coupled with other required post-election activities like the statewide canvass — won’t leave them with enough time to produce accurate ballots by the September deadline, officials wrote.
A similar issue could arise after the General Election – counties said that, in addition to any recounts, it takes at least 17 days after the November 5 vote to complete all post election activities required by law to meet a federal December 11 deadline to certify electors in the presidential election. Recounts triggered by the new law could leave them with too few days to complete those activities, they say.
“This is not something that we can wait to see whether there is going to be an issue later on this year,” said Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates. “We need action by the legislature and the governor now.”
The problem is not being ignored outright at the state Capitol — Gates said the counties have had at least 60 meetings with lawmakers and the governor’s office — but, so far, leaders from both parties have said little publicly about what they plan to do to address the problem.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs made no mention of the issue during her 45-minute State of the State speech on Monday. In fact, the governor — who was the state’s chief election officer as Secretary of State from 2019 to 2023 — didn’t mention elections at all during the speech.
“I was disappointed,” said Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates. “I hoped they would have talked about it and expressed the importance of this issue.”
Christian Slater, a spokesman for the governor, said Hobbs is working with the Legislature to fix the election timeline, but said the governor’s office won’t comment further on ongoing negotiations.
But Hobbs told 12 News she could call a special session of the Legislature if needed to address the issue. She said she wanted a “clean fix,” meaning she doesn’t want the fix packaged with other legislation.
So far, Republicans in the Arizona Senate are the only lawmakers to publicly state they plan to introduce a bill to fix the problem.
Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) called the issue an “anomaly with the year of 2024” and said it is the Legislature’s job to ensure that election officials can meet their deadlines within the election calendar if the law triggers recounts.
“And we’ll do whatever we have to do,” Rogers said. “We will work with the governor’s office. We will work with the counties as the state legislature to lead and make sure that the citizens have the total picture.”
Rogers didn’t directly answer when asked if Republicans would attach other election reforms opposed by Hobbs to a bill to fix the deadline issue, a poison pill scenario that could prompt the governor to veto the bill.
But Rogers did say that solving the deadline issue is “first and foremost.”
But the details of the Republican plan are still unknown, and county election officials said time is running out to come up with a solution.
Jennifer Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, said there is not one solution to the problem — the counties are proposing a series of changes that could work in concert to give counties the time they need to meet election deadlines.
Marson said Arizona’s 15 counties are unified in support of the plan but there is no agreement amongst all “players at the table.”
For the primary elections, the counties would like to shorten the time candidates have to proofread ballots from five to two days.
They would also like to move up the primary election by one week from Aug. 6 to July 30 — something Rogers said Senate Republicans were not considering.
For both the primary and general elections, the counties propose changing the interpretation of a state law that requires them to conduct a five-day cure period, or the time period after an election when mail-in voters can correct any problems with their signatures on a ballot envelope in order to ensure their vote is counted.
The existing law does not specify whether the five days should include weekends, but Marson said counties currently provide five business days for curing.
They would like to change that interpretation to allow them to work through the weekend.
“That means that nothing else can start until the cure is over…counties would have to be open on weekends to do the cure — some of them are now, some of them aren’t — they would all have to be,” Marson said.
The counties also want both the state and counties to canvass elections sooner and are asking for the ability to transmit documents related to the canvass to the Secretary of State’s office electronically, a change that could save a day or more for counties located far away from the Capitol that currently have to hand deliver the documents to Phoenix.
The county plan also calls for more resources to speed up the logic and accuracy testing process for voting equipment. Marson said that currently the secretary of state sends a team to Maricopa County first and then moves on to the other counties, a process that can take up to nine days.
“So more resources to the secretary of state, so that maybe they can send multiple teams to all the different counties, maybe on the same day,” she said.
Another “wonky” change, Marson said, would see the Legislature harmonize the percentage of ballots that are required to be audited under a recount and under the mandatory headcount audits all counties must conduct following an election.
“Right now, the percentages that are counted are different,” she said. “If we mirror them, we could save some time.”
Marson and Gates both said the counties are open to other solutions that would give them the time they need to meet primary and general election deadlines.
“If they can come up with other changes that give us the time we need, we’re all ears,” Gates said.
But they cautioned that those proposals need to be tied to tangible timelines that show the counties will have enough time to mail out ballots to UOCAVA voters and ensure the state’s votes in the presidential election are counted.
“This is not the year for ‘maybes,” Marson said. “We need 19 days in 2024.”
