Maricopa County executive director Zach Schira claimed on Tuesday that recent changes to the state’s elections as a result of a “landmark” election integrity bill that enjoyed overwhelming support in the Arizona Legislature.
Schira told The Arizona Republic that complying with a provision in HB 2785 which requires election workers to count the number of early ballots at each polling location required an average of 30 to 45 minutes at polling locations across the state for the March 19 presidential preference election.
“We’ll likely have three to five times that volume in November,” Schira told the outlet, suggesting the requirement could cause results for the November elections to by delayed by up to three hours.
Schira also told the outlet that poll workers reported 31,174 early ballots across the state, but a machine count of ballots discovered 33,155 early ballots were cast.
State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) told The Republic he would look into the “weird” discrepancy in vote counts but said changes to the legislation to require counts were better than the alternative.
Kolodin told the outlet he “would much rather know if the count’s off” by waiting “half an hour to 35 minutes to find that out” than have the discrepancy at a later date.
The legislation, which passed the Arizona House with only two votes against it and has since been signed into law by Governor Katie Hobbs, sets standards for signature verification, promotes the use of voter ID in early voting, and corrects previous conflicts in election deadlines.
After the legislation was passed, the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) celebrated the law as a win for election integrity. The party highlighted the codified signature verification process, list of mail ballots, “more even playing field during ballot curing,” and fast access to system log files as important elements of the legislation.
Kolodin previously acknowledged that the legislation might not match the expectations of some election integrity proponents, suggesting a balancing act was necessary for Hobbs to approve it.
“Politics is the art of the possible, and when Republicans stick together, we can achieve the impossible, like getting Katie Hobbs to sign real election reforms into law,” said Kolodin after the legislation passed.
Kolodin said, “Arizona’s voters can rest assured that the 2024 election will be more secure, free, and fair than those that have gone before.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
