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The county officials who administer Arizona’s elections are warning of dire consequences if legislators don’t tweak the state’s election law to accommodate a slew of recounts — and so far, Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on a way to fix the issue.
- A law passed in 2022 is widely expected to trigger more automatic recounts in the upcoming primary and general elections. County officials warn that the time it takes to conduct those recounts overlaps with the time they need to meet other election administration requirements and deadlines.
- But Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Republican legislative leaders don’t have an agreement on what to change about Arizona’s elections laws — ideas ranging from changing the timeline for voters to verify their votes were counted to moving up the date of the August primary to July.
- County officials say Feb. 9 is the deadline to make changes to election laws and give election officials enough time to administer those changes for the upcoming primary and general elections. But it’ll take a bipartisan, two-thirds majority vote of the House and Senate to pass those changes with an emergency clause so they’ll take effect immediately.
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