Arizona lawmakers fight over requiring more early-ballot signature checks

PHOENIX — A last-minute effort to fix state election deadlines fell apart late Monday as Republicans and Democrats could not agree on a plan. And if there isn’t a fix, Arizona’s 2024 electoral votes for president could go uncounted.

Republicans are pushing ahead with their plan to move up the 2024 primary election to late July from August, but Gov. Katie Hobbs and her fellow Democrats say that’s unnecessary.

Republicans also want to enshrine more vigorous signature verification requirement for early ballots into state law, but Hobbs says that could disenfranchise legitimate voters.

The clock is ticking.

To get the big change the Republicans say is necessary, there must be legislative action by the end of this week. That’s because that simple change has a domino effect, altering everything else from printing ballots to when candidates have to submit their signatures.

That, in turn, requires bipartisan approval as it takes a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate, plus the signature of the governor, to take effect immediately.

Democrats are balking, saying they want a “clean fix’’ to the problem, one the said need not alter election dates or other voting laws. And that, they said, means not tinkering with other ideas on the GOP wish list.

But despite being in the minority they are not without power. Republicans control only a bare majority, allowing Democrats to effectively veto any plan they don’t like.

How the time crunch happened

At the root of the problem is a change pushed through the Legislature after the 2020 presidential race in which Joe Biden outpolled Donald Trump in Arizona by 10,457 votes out of more than 3.4 million cast. The margin of difference wasn’t small enough to force a mandatory recount under the then-existing laws, which said it had to be less than 0.1%.

Republican lawmakers pushed through a measure in 2022 changing the margin to 0.5% — which would have triggered a 2020 recount, and is likely to require more recounts in the future.

Only thing is, recounts cannot take place until after the statewide results are certified.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that could leave counties without the results they need after the primary to print general election ballots to be sent to overseas voters to get them back by Election Day. Hence the GOP plan for an earlier primary.

The potentially bigger problem is that federal law now requires states to get their presidential choices to Washington, D.C. by Dec. 11. And if Arizona is still recounting the vote, the choice of its voters for president won’t be in the final Electoral Vote tally.

Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, said the simplest thing for the Republicans in charge of the Legislature would be “fixing a problem they created,’’ meaning the 0.5% recount margin.

That, however, ignores the fact that the 2022 measure gained bipartisan support. In fact, the legislation was approved by the House on a 50-1 margin, with only Democratic Rep. Stephanie Stahl-Hamilton opposed.

And the political reality is that Republicans will not support repeal.

The partisan fight

So Democrats late Monday offered an alternative: Lower the recount threshold — but only to two-tenths of a percent, a margin that still would not have forced a recount in Trump’s loss.

Republicans want more.

A provision in their House Bill 2785 would move up the primary by a week, to July 30. That would help resolve the problem with preparing general election ballots.

That is a non-starter with the Democrats, whose HB 2816, also introduced Monday, does not include such a provision.

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Fixing the deadline for approving final general election results to get them to Washington on time requires something else.

One quick fix would be to change the amount of time voters whose signatures on early ballots don’t match have to “cure’’ the problem.

That is currently five business days. The GOP plan calls for changing it to five calendar days, buying two extra days.

That also is not in the Democrats’ proposal.

Rep. Laura Terech, D-Phoenix, said that would require voters whose ballots are questioned to go to county election offices to verify that the signature on the ballot envelope is theirs.

“Some of the concerns that I’ve heard expressed about the lack of public transportation on the weekends that might make it a little bit harder for some voters to get that cure,’’ she said.

Signature verification

There’s another big sticking point.

The GOP measure includes an entirely new provision in the Election Code spelling out the kind of signature verification that would have to be done on early ballots. It is quite detailed.

It would start with an evaluation of the “broad characteristics’’ of a signature, including the type and speed of writing, overall spacing, position of the signature, and spelling and punctuation.

If those seem to match, the ballot would be counted. But if they don’t, there would be a second check looking at the “local characteristics’’ of the signature, such as internal spacing, the presence or absence of pen lifts, beginning and ending strokes, and the curves, loops and cross points.

At that point if there are still doubts, a second person would be asked to review. All that ultimately could result in a declaration of a mismatch and a need to cure.

That is unacceptable to Hobbs, said her press aide Christian Slater.

“It’s unrelated to the issue that we’re facing,’’ he said.

Moreover, Slater said, “It could lead to a massive increase in the number of early ballots rejected and increased litigation over those ballots,’’ further delaying getting a final count to Washington.

The governor vetoed identical language last year, he noted.

No date yet has been set for a hearing on the Republican plan. And it remains unclear whether GOP leadership will even schedule a hearing on the Democratic plan.

Court cases

Republicans have been complaining about the signature review process for years.

In 2020 Kelli Ward, who at the time chaired the Arizona Republican Party, filed suit claiming it lacked sufficient safeguards to ensure early ballots came from the registered voters whose envelopes were submitted.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner dismissed the claim, pointing out that a forensic document examiner hired by Ward’s attorney reviewed 100 of those envelopes. At best, the judge said, the examiner found six signatures to be “inclusive,’’ meaning she could not testify they were a match to the signature on file. But the judge also noted the witness found no signs of forgery.

Jump to 2022, when losing GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake sought to overturn her 17,117-vote loss to Hobbs. Lake’s so-far-unsuccessful bid to overturn the election is based on claims tens of thousands of ballots were not properly verified by Maricopa County, a claim a judge has rejected as unproven.