At a discreet bar at the end of an alley in downtown Phoenix, the state’s most prominent election officials and former political opponents met Wednesday night to exchange lighthearted jabs and ideas on how to improve Arizona’s election process. bottom.
Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Republican Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer have discussed ways to reform the state’s electoral system, a growing public and political backlash against its speed and accuracy.
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Should Arizona Abolish Early Voting?
As the most visible leader of the state’s most populous county, Richter, who has survived endless accusations of electoral fraud, has led a series of proposed reforms Last month included shortening the deadline for mail-in ballots. The main reason he’s taking more than a week for the Arizona election results to be finalized is a filing known as “early late.”
Mail-in ballots undergo a longer and more complex approval process than in-person ballots, and the combination of voter tardiness, increased voter participation, and recent Republican candidate rhetoric has resulted in delayed submissions for election officials to deal with in the election. It’s overkill. Day.
In Maricopa County alone, there will be over 290,000 early dumpers on Election Day, which Richer estimates represents 20% of the vote. And in a state that is becoming more and more closely contested, it could be crucial.
“I’m concerned that by not having a high percentage of vote results within 24 hours, it will seriously undermine trust,” he said, advocating moving the last day of early voting from Election Day to the Friday before. Richer said.
Fontes countered that interest in speed has grown in recent years because of close competition and political rhetoric. The Democrats, who lost their re-election bid to Richer in 2020 after being elected Maricopa County Record Keeper in 2016, want the deadline to stay in place to allow as many voters as possible to vote. I’m in.
Fontes noted that the results appeared to be faster, despite the greater late-early burden. During his tenure, he was only about 100,000 late on Election Day in 2020, but his final reporting time was similar to his 2022 election.
Fontes added that more resources will be needed to speed up election results while maintaining accuracy.
“The rules were that elections could be done quickly and/or accurately and/or cheaply. But you can only pick two things,” he said. You can get them to, but at a huge cost.You can make them accurate and cheap, but they won’t be fast.That’s what we have now.”
Should Arizona repeal the ruling?
Arbitration is the process of making a voter’s decision when a ballot is damaged and unreadable by a tallyer. For example, if a voter spills coffee on the ballot, or fills both bubbles in one race and circles the candidate they actually prefer, the tallying machine cannot log the voter’s choice. . At that time, a panel of election officials consisting of trained election inspectors from Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisans will discuss the voters’ true intentions.
Richer pointed out that arbitration also helps lengthen the process, and that voting at face value consumes a lot of resources. Voters had the option to submit new ballots, he said, but did not.
“It’s a washout and it takes a lot of time and resources,” he said.
Arizona election officials are required by law to do so whenever possible, he added, although many states do not do so. Maricopa County has the longest arbitration record of the 15 counties, as it has the highest arbitration capacity. As such, election officials are at the center of the controversy over arbitrage rates used by election deniers to support bogus claims that election officials are maliciously altering voter choices. .
But Fontes said election officials should do their utmost to ensure that all voters have their ballots and voices counted.
“Arbitration is Deadline (to) to voters. Voters took a long time to fill out their ballots,” he said. “We as election administrators should not just sell everything, not even that one race of him.”
“Warm and ambiguous Democrats think we should pay attention to what voters really feel,” Fontes said, prompting eruptions of laughter from the audience.
“And Republicans are asking you to fill the bubble!” Richer joked.
Should machines be replaced by hand counting?
Today, Arizona uses tally machines to count a huge amount of ballots. They undergo extensive testing to ensure they meet state and federal standards, and limited hand counts are used before and after elections. Check accuracy.
But conspiracy theories have been on the rise since the midterm elections, when a problem with Maricopa County’s on-demand printers led to the rejection of hundreds of ballots.Skeptics of Automatic Counting Machines Somehow Used in Arizona dating back to 1881 — suggested a full return to handcounting.
Both Richer and Fontes dismissed the proposal as impracticable.A handcount study found that they consistently flawed, with an error rate large enough to shake a close election. And it’s unrealistic to ask election officials to manually process thousands of ballots in a timeframe that will satisfy Arizona residents. contest was held.
“Manual counting is much less accurate than machine counting,” says Fontes.
“In this past election, there were 80 contests in the ballot. Let’s say Maricopa County got 2 million votes. 160 million votes? Have fun for months,” Richer said. said.
Handcount advocates advocate a mass return to smaller constituency-style voting. Vote center-style ballots are popular in both large and rural communities and are used in Maricopa, Pima, and Yavapai counties. Constituency voters can only vote in their assigned constituency, which is determined by where they live. Voting elsewhere means your votes are not counted.
Vote centers have on-demand printers that can print any type of ballot for any voter in that county. In Maricopa County, some printers broke down last year, causing confusion at some polling places. But Richer said the benefits of vote centers far outweigh the criticism from opponents who unfoundedly fear it will lead to more fraud.
“It’s overwhelmingly popular with voters at every exit poll,” he said. “It has reduced costs and made it much more convenient. Well, as long as you show up within your county, that’s fine.
Should Arizona replace its voting system with ranked choice voting?
Ranked-choice voting has become a hot topic this year, as protests erupted after Arizona’s Republican Party introduced the vote. measures to prohibit it. Critics accused the party of acting preemptively As the state turns more purple, we’ve seen the Republicans – the longtime majority party – begin to unravel their decades-long hold on Arizona politics.
Ranked-choice voting is a system in which voters choose from the most popular candidates to the least popular candidates, regardless of political party. The top choices determine which candidates move on. Elections in Arizona are held on a winner-takes-all basis, with the candidate with the most votes winning.
Proponents of ranked choice voting sell it as a process that promotes a more substantive, less militant race, as candidates can end up working together.Fontes and Richer seemed to agree, but added that changes would require careful consideration and voter re-education.
Fontes advocated introducing the system gradually, first by using it in school districts or local elections. He said the ranked choice ballot locations are in state primaries, presumably to ensure that candidates for the general election are high-quality candidates.
“It saves a ton of money. I think we get to have more intelligent conversations and ultimately get better policymakers,” he said.
Richer added that ranked choice voting could make legislative bodies, which are often shaped by strongly partisan constituencies today, more representative.
Are these changes possible?
Many of the proposals, and funding to satisfy them, require legislative action. While the Republican majority is often accused of trying to coddle conspiracy theories into law by pushing for a complete ban on dropboxes and early voting, election officials have kept the conversation on track. It is important to have some legislators reform.
For example, a proposal from Richter to prohibit voter registration organizations from paying contractors to collect those registrations, so that contractors do not engage in duplicate activities to obtain those registrations. Specification This session is for doing just that.
“We make sausages behind the scenes, so there are a lot of opportunities that the public doesn’t get to see,” Fontes assured the crowd.
“People understand why we are in the framework we are in because we see having conversations as an end in itself, and if we choose to stay in that framework, At least people will understand that,” says Richer. He said.
