Survey: Arizonans care more about election accuracy than speed

A new survey suggests that Arizonans care more about the accuracy and trustworthiness of elections than how long it takes to count votes.

The study, commissioned by the Center for the Future of Arizona, asked Arizonans of all political stripes a variety of questions about what they look for and value in elections.

According to the results, 97% of Arizonans across political lines believe that fair and secure elections are essential to a healthy democracy. They also broadly agreed that misinformation is a major concern, with 88% – including 85% of Republicans, 92% of Democrats and 90% of independents – saying it is a threat.

“We know that we agree on much more than we disagree,” said Sybil Francis, Center for the Future of Arizona president and CEO.

There was less agreement over whether Arizonans should trust the people who are currently administering Arizonan’s elections, though.

According to the survey, 51% of Republicans said they can trust local and state officials to ensure elections are “conducted fairly, accurately, and securely,” compared to 80% of Democrats and 70% of independents.

At an event at Arizona State University, several state election officials considered why that divide exists.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said widespread misunderstandings over how quickly ballots are counted in the state has contributed to distrust among some groups.

“The biggest problem we have in the speed question … is that very few people are making the distinction between network predictions and election results,” Fontes said.

Fontes pointed out that controversial election calls – like Fox News’ decision to call the 2020 presidential election in Arizona against President Donald Trump – are made by media organizations and have no bearing on the speed that actual ballots are counted by election workers in counties across the state.

“You're making those policy decisions based on the speed and accuracy of some network statistician for the AP or the Christian Science Monitor or Fox News,” he said.

Election officials across the state have long said the speed at which they count ballots hasn’t changed significantly in the past several years. But it is taking longer and longer for those media organizations to “call” races, or predict a winner, because Arizona has seen increasingly close races over the past several election cycles.

Scott Jarrett, Maricopa County Elections director, compared it to the Super Bowl, calling midnight on election night “the third quarter,” because there are still ballots left to count.

“And guess what – 12 p.m. on election night 20 years ago in Arizona, it was still the third quarter, right?” he said. “What's changed is … the margins are much closer, so people don't know the results.”

Election officials don’t actually certify the results for weeks after any election, regardless of how fast a media organization calls a particular race.

For instance, Gov. Katie Hobbs won election by less than 1% in 2022 in a race that media organizations didn’t call for six days. That year, the governor, secretary of state and attorney general certified Hobbs’ victory 27 days after Election Day.

In 2014, when former Gov. Doug Ducey won by nearly 12%, media outlets called the election for Ducey early on election night, but it still took state officials 27 days to certify his win.

Legislative changes

The survey found that 87% of respondents said that delivering election results more quickly is important, but only 44% believe it is “essential.”

That trailed other priorities like ensuring every ballot is counted accurately; making sure election administrators are trustworthy; making election processes transparent and observable; keeping voters and election workers safe; and guaranteeing voting is equally accessible for all eligible voters.

Still, a vocal contingent of voters – and politicians from across the country – have ridiculed Arizona, and Maricopa County specifically, in recent cycles for allegedly taking too long to count votes.

And Republican lawmakers at the state Capitol have backed multiple changes to election law that they say will speed up the count.

That includes a measure this year that would require voters who want to turn in their early ballots to a polling place to do so by 7 p.m. on the Friday before the election rather than 7 p.m. on Election Day, which is current law, and let county recorders start counting those ballots sooner.

Democrats argued that would harm voters who are used to the current rules, and Fontes called the proposal a “solution looking for a problem.”

“And those bad policies that interfere even in the slightest with voters’ access, those are the things we need to be concerned about,” Fontes said.

“I cannot fathom why a person who, because of last minute surprises, believes in voting not until the very last minute on Election Day – why they would request an early ballot. Makes no sense to me,” Sen. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) said before voting in favor of the bill.

Elections funding

Election officials at the ASU event suggested several ways lawmakers could support counties, which administer elections in Arizona, to fulfill Arizonans’ top priorities in the survey. That includes ensuring accurate elections, which 96% of respondents said was important and 79% listed as essential.

Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines, a Republican, called on the Legislature to standardize funding across the state to provide counties with consistent and predictable funding to run the state’s elections.

“If we standardized across the state with equal appropriation based on a per capita ratio, something like that, then we can ensure that we have efficient elections,” he said.

Currently, the amount of financial assistance counties receive from the state and federal governments is unpredictable.

“The reality is, while the Legislature sometimes does provide funding to the Secretary of State's Office and some of that funding gets passed down to counties, by and large, the cost of elections is simply a cost that the counties bear,” said Jen Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties.

Last year, the GOP-controlled Legislature gave Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and Yuma County Recorder David Lara, both allies to Trump who ran for office claiming elections in their counties could not be trusted, millions in funding for elections.

But lawmakers did not provide equal funding to the state’s other 13 counties.

According to the survey, 87% of respondents support increasing funding for election improvements like hiring more workers, upgrading equipment and improving vote counting. And 76% – including 72% of Republicans, 83% of Democrats and 74% of independents – would support a “small increase” in state taxes to pay for it.

Lines said he would support asking voters to decide how they wanted to come up with the extra money to pay for elections.

The Good Elections survey was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights and included 1,136 Arizona adults. It has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.