Some Arizona early voting ballots may have errors
Early ballots are arriving in Arizona voters’ mailboxes, with some confusion and corrections trailing in their wake.
From a possible error in a few thousand voter registrations that could affect which ballot those voters receive, to a re-do for 550 ballots in Cochise County, to confusion over a ballot insert in Yavapai County, the biannual exercise of ballot bewilderment has started.
While issues with voter registration and ballots happen every election cycle, there is heightened voter sensitivity to election procedures, given the enduring suspicions stoked by false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
But, elections officials noted, any problems so far were found early and there is time to correct them before the election on Nov. 8.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office said the registrations of about 6,000 voters were getting doublechecked after a county recorder’s office flagged a problem that might have identified those voters as eligible for a ballot that allows voting only in federal races.
That would mean no statewide races, ballot measures or local contests would appear on ballots sent to those voters. The Secretary of State’s Office estimated only 1,000 of the potentially affected voters were sent a ballot designed for “federal only” voters.
The issue came to light after the Secretary of State’s Office informed the 15 county recorders that a computer system that checked records with the state’s Motor Vehicles Division against the voter registration failed to pick up citizenship information for some voters.
Thus, those voters were identified as eligible for the “federal only” ballot that contains the races for U.S. Senate and Congress.
Arizona requires documentary proof of citizenship to vote for statewide races, the Legislature, ballot measures and other contests. People who can’t, or don’t, provide those documents can register to vote in federal races as long as they sign an affidavit attesting to their citizenship.
Kori Lorick, director of election services for the secretary’s office, said the program that connects the two databases was imprecise in checking on citizenship status. That is why the counties have been asked to review their portion of the 6,000 records to verify if the voter should receive the limited federal-only ballot or the full ballot.
Lorick said the office is expediting the review, and should have a tally of how many voters are affected later this week or early next week. An estimated 1,000 ballots may have gone out in the mail already, she said, and if a voter is found to have received the wrong ballot type, there is a process to correct that.
“If any voter is impacted by this, they will be contacted,” she said. “Only one ballot per voter will ever be processed.”
Any voter who believes they got a ballot in error should contact their country recorder. Contact information for all 15 recorders is listed on the secretary of state’s website.
Stay informed: Here’s what you need to know about early voting
Ballot mix-up in Cochise County
In Cochise County, home to about 125,000 people in the southeastern corner of the state, 550 early voters received the wrong ballots in the mail.
Voters in eleven precincts along the edges of two proposed groundwater management areas were affected. There are two propositions to establish water management areas — the Willcox Active Management Area and Douglas Active Management Area — in Cochise County this election cycle, and Recorder David Stevens said some people incorrectly had the measures.
“Some people who shouldn’t have gotten the questions got them,” he said.
Now, those affected can expect to receive a lime green notice postcard in the mail, followed by a replacement ballot.
The county contracts with Runbeck Election Services to print and send out its early ballots. Stevens said the replacement ballots should hit voters’ mailboxes before the end of the week.
Each ballot’s return envelope contains an identifying code unique to the voter. Stevens said his staff have already voided the initial ballots sent to affected voters.
As election workers scan ballots for signature verification, the county’s equipment will tell them whether the code matches the initial ballot or the replacement one.
“If they send the right one in, it’ll just take it,” Stevens said.
Any initial ballots received by election workers will be isolated. If a voter sends both the replacement ballot and their initial ballot back to the county, only the replacement ballot will get counted. If a voter only sends just the initial ballot, all the contests they are eligible to vote in will get counted.
“We will be scouring through the early ballots as they come in,” Stevens said.
Cochise County officials said voters who go to the polls will receive the correct ballots on Election Day.
The issues bear a stark resemblance to Pinal County’s problems during the August primary. There, an estimated 63,000 erroneous ballots were sent to early voters.
“The issue is the same,” Stevens said.
Confusing insert in Yavapai County
In Yavapai County, Irene Graham was perplexed when she reviewed the 10 ballot propositions but found no ovals on which to mark her “yes” or “no” vote. She called the county recorder fearing something was wrong and was told, she said, that if she marked her choice on the sheet containing the ballot language, her vote wouldn’t get counted.
What she wasn’t told, she said, was that the propositions were on the flip side of her ballot. What she was looking at was a one-page insert that election officials included in the ballot package with the full language of each proposition.
She learned this after The Arizona Republic sorted out the matter with Yavapai County elections officials.
To save space and keep the ballot to one page, the county opted to put the full text of each ballot measure on a separate sheet of paper, said Matthew Mortellaro, assistant director of elections in Yavapai County. The insert was printed on regular copy paper and labeled as a text insert, which officials hoped would signal to voters that the sheet was not the official ballot.
“I wish they had told me that yesterday,” Graham said when a reporter shared the county’s explanation Tuesday. A replacement ballot is on its way for her and her husband, and their original ballots, although correctly formatted, will not get counted.
Given a handful of complaints about the insert already received by officials, Mortellaro said the county is planning a press release to further explain the purpose of the insert.
The alternative was a two-page ballot, which elections officials rejected both for cost reasons and because of the potential risk of a voter forgetting to return both pages, Mortellaro said.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl. Contact Sasha Hupka at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @sashahupka
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