Maricopa County: New requirement to count early ballots at polls could delay election results

Officials in the state's largest county are concerned a provision in a newly passed election law may delay election night results by hours in November.

The new statute was designed to ensure the state's recently widened recount margin won't disrupt this year's elections. Getting it through the Arizona Legislature required compromises from election officials — including one that stipulates counties must count the number of early ballots received at each of their voting sites and report those figures to the public on election night.

County officials said that isn't a fast process. It could leave election staffers across the state struggling to report results as politicians, pundits and the public eagerly await early tallies.

Executive Director Zach Schira said it took poll workers an average of 30 to 45 minutes to pile up early ballots and count them by hand during last week's presidential preference election, which saw low turnout.

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"We'll likely have three to five times that volume in November," Schira said.

He said accuracy is another concern. Poll workers reported 31,174 early ballots in Tuesday's election night count. But machines that scanned and tallied the unopened early ballots put the real total at 33,155.

A few polling sites didn't report an early ballot tally to county officials, Schira said. That could be because those sites didn't receive any early ballot drop-offs on election day, or because poll workers forgot to tally them on election night.

The scanned total of early ballots also included those placed into the county's outdoor drop boxes and picked up from the U.S. Postal Service at the end of election day, which Schira said weren't required to be hand tallied. That could help explain the discrepancy.

But state Rep. Alex Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said the 2,000 ballot difference was "weird." He pledged to "look into why that is" and defended the potential election night delays as "well worth it" to increase transparency.

"I would much rather know if the count's off... and wait half an hour to 35 minutes to find that out," said Kolodin, an election lawyer who was one of the key negotiators of the new statute. "That's pretty concerning."

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Schira said hand counting is known to be "fallible." He noted poll workers must count the early ballots at the end of a long, stressful day amid a "high stakes period of time" in which they must also shut down polling sites, fill out chain of custody forms and ensure all voting materials and equipment heads back to county election officials.

"Humans aren't perfect," Schira said. "And there's a good chance that they'll never be perfect in those hand counts."

Trials have repeatedly shown hand counting is less accurate, more expensive and far slower than counting with tabulators.

A report from Mohave County concluded it would take one group of seven people about 657 eight-hour days to tally all of the 105,000 ballots cast in the 2020 General Election, not including the extra time needed to correct any errors or to consider votes for write-in candidates. The effort could cost upward of $1 million, said Mohave County Elections Director Allen Tempert.

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Former Pinal County Elections Director Geraldine Roll began a trial hand count of 2,000 test ballots from the 2022 election before abruptly leaving her position. She found each batch of 25 ballots took her team about 80 minutes to count.

And amid the Arizona Senate's high-profile "audit" of the 2020 presidential race results in Maricopa County, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan admitted in text messages that he couldn't accurately tally a hand count of the county's 2.1 million ballots, noting the numbers were "screwy."

Schira said he worries an intense focus on any election discrepancies in battleground Arizona will result in harassment of election staffers. Maricopa County anonymized polling locations in a results document detailing the hand tallies of early ballots on Tuesday night.

Incident forms filled out by poll workers in 2022 show frontline election workers are already facing threats and politically charged disruptions at voting sites.

"We don't want poll workers targeted or locations targeted because they were off," he said.

Will the provision increase voter confidence or erode trust?

Kolodin said the early ballot count is designed to improve voter trust in Arizona's electoral system. He pointed to the 2,000 ballot discrepancy in Maricopa County's early ballot numbers as an example of the new legislation working as intended.

"Many in the 'everything is fine with elections camp' think that voter confidence is served by just sweeping problems under the rug," Kolodin said. "I tend to think it's different... For me, finding problems like this is very much a point of the bill."

But result drops already often stretch into the early hours of the morning, meaning election officials must work gruelingly long shifts. That's a function of the complex closing procedures poll workers must complete before transporting ballots and other materials back to county election headquarters.

The size of the jurisdictions also can delay early tallies. Coconino County, Arizona's largest by land area, spans more than 18,600 square miles in the northern part of the state.

As electoral distrust has grown, election officials have been repeatedly accused of counting ballots too slowly — both on election night and in the days after. Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake falsely alleged Maricopa County officials were intentionally slowing down vote counting in 2022. Any increased delay could amplify those concerns.

Schira said the new law passed after the county had concluded its poll worker training for Tuesday's election. He intends to include processes for the early ballot count in future staff training. It's a move both he and Kolodin said could improve wait times for results.

"Between now and July, there's a chance we get better at this," Schira said. "But I don't know how significantly... it's still people hand counting at the end of a very, very long shift."

He added: "If you get this right, then it increases transparency. Over time, with training and implementing the process, if we can get this to a place where it's efficient and effective, then that's an improvement to the system and we are unopposed to that."

Sasha Hupka covers county government and election administration for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip to share on elections or voting? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @SashaHupka. Follow her on Instagram or Threads: @sashahupkasnaps.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County could see delayed election results