Hobbs, Republicans at impasse over how to speed up Arizona election results

Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs are at odds over how to speed up election results in Arizona.

Hobbs says she’ll to veto the first bill that will cross her desk this year, a piece of legislation that passed the Arizona House and Senate along party lines this week that would no longer allow Arizona voters to drop off early ballots at any polling place on Election Day.

The governor said the bill – which would set a Friday deadline to turn in those mail-in ballots at polling places – would disenfranchise the hundreds of thousands of people who typically wait until Election Day to drop off their early ballot at the polls.

“I've been clear from day one that I can support taking action that would make election results happen faster, but we're not going to do that in a way that disenfranchises voters, and that's exactly what this bill does,” Hobbs said.

Republican lawmakers and the county officials backing the bill said those concerns are overblown and that getting rid of those so-called “late early” ballots is the best way to speed up vote counting.

“Arizona had the dubious distinction of being the last state in the entire country to report who won the presidency,” Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said. “With the signing of this bill that will end, and when you vote in the future, you will know who has won the race on the night of the election.”

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin estimated adopting a plan like the one passed by the Legislature would allow his county to count 95% of ballots on Election night.

Hobbs said she understood the desire by county officials to speed up vote counting.

“And I know that our county officials take a lot of heat from the public when we can't call races as early as people want to call them, but I won't do that at the expense of voters,” she said.

Supporters argue they can do that without decreasing voter access, saying early voters would still have 27 days to return their ballots.

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“This bill is a voter access bill,” Rep. Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) said, citing parts of the bill that could increase the number of polling places. It would also allow counties to extend early in-person voting to the Monday before the election, instead of the Friday deadline under current law.

The bill’s backers acknowledged there will need to be a voter education campaign to inform Arizonans about the change if the bill – or an identical ballot referral lawmakers could send to voters in 2026 – make it into law.

“Voter outreach needs to be an important part of this,” Petersen said.

Maricopa County Supervisor Mark Stewart said his county has already discussed setting aside a “seven-figure” budget to fund voter outreach should the proposal become law.

But Democrats remain unconvinced.

Some Democratic lawmakers and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes argue there is no need to speed up the reporting of results in Arizona, pointing out that it is media organizations, not elections officials, that make the calls in races most people see on television or the internet.

“It just seems like, if there's a problem, then maybe the bill’s sponsors should take it up with AP or Fox News,” Sen. Lauren Kuby (D-Tempe) said.

Fontes’ spokesman Aaron Thacker said most voters seem content to wait for official results, and 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. State and county officials don’t announce election results until weeks later when they certify the official election canvass.

However, Hobbs acknowledged that more can be done to speed up the vote counting process. But the governor said there are other solutions, pointing to a host of proposals Democrats accused Republicans of rejecting out of hand.

“We came to the table with proposals that would still give a Friday drop off deadline but not make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote and all of those compromise proposals were rejected,” she said.

According to documents obtained by Votebeat, Hobbs’ office proposed several changes the governor sought in exchange for getting rid of “late early” ballots, including legalizing same day voter registration, restoring the Permanent Early Voter list and increasing access to online voter registration options.

The Republicans backing the bill accused Hobbs' office of springing those proposals on them at the last minute, saying her office did not attend any committee hearings on the bill before it went for a full vote in the House and Senate.

“It's about ready to go on the board, she comes to us with an unclear and vague laundry list of demands, although it's not clear which demands need to be satisfied in order to supposedly win her approval, and many of which would take six months to refine all on their own,” Kolodin said.

Hobbs will have five days to veto the bill once the Legislature officially sends it to her desk. If she does that, Republicans plan to push HCR 2013, a mirror piece of legislation working its way through the Arizona House that would send the proposal to voters in 2026.

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services contributed to this report.