Will city have all-mail election?
The one set of numbers of consequence in the otherwise predictable Phoenix City Council election next week — only one of the four council districts is contested — will be the turnout of those voting in person. That set of figures, along with several other bits of data being analyzed this fall, could determine whether Phoenix pivots to a mail-only voting for municipal elections.
And, the logic goes, what Phoenix does could sway the county and state to do the same.
Yet, for all the trend lines and signs pointing to mail-only elections, I wouldn’t bank on it happening quite yet.
The concept certainly gained traction here last year, following nightmarish lines at some precincts in Maricopa County during the Arizona presidential primaries.
More than a few who mailed in their ballots noted, smugly, that the hourslong waits, confusion and backlash would be non-issues under a vote-bymail system.
Vote-by-mail appeals because of the simplicity — simple because every registered voter would receive a ballot in the mail, which they can return by mail or drop off. Simpler, too, for elections officials, who wouldn’t have to effectively run separate operations for early ballots and in-person voting. So why isn’t Phoenix already there? A big part of the answer is, well, us voters. More specifically, our love of options and convenience.
Voters in Phoenix elections arguably have the best of both worlds now with a “voting center” system that offers both voting-by-mail and casting ballots in person on days leading up to and including Election Day.
It is the same process that Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes seeks to implement for statewide elections, but which would require approval from the state Legislature.
Phoenix was the first major Arizona city to switch to the voting-center system in 2011. It reduced polling places from 125 on Election Day to about 30 voting centers on Election Day, plus the Saturday and Monday before. Voters were free to go any of the centers instead of an assigned precinct. The city shaved about a quarter of a million dollars in electionrelated costs.
The move made sense. Nine of out 10 ballots are cast early, and by registered voters who elect to be put on the Permanent Early Voting List to receive ballots in the mail.
To take it to a truly mail-only system would mean the city would have to add voters not currently enrolled in PEVL and send them early ballots too. That is no small number — roughly 235,000 people or about 30 percent of the 740,000 registered voters (The percentage is even higher at the county and state level).
Between the mailing and processing of those additional ballots, Phoenix would face upwards of half-a-million dollars more in costs.
And all that with no guarantee that voting participation would increase. As is, even with most votes cast by those who ask to receive early ballots, the turnout percentage is in the low 20s.
Nor is there a guarantee it won’t infuriate that small but vocal group of voters who for a host of reasons don’t like, trust or otherwise use voting by mail. This last point probably looms even larger for statewide elections, in which higher offices inflame passions a lot more than local races do.
Add in the argument of restricting voter access by subbing out voting precincts with a small fraction of voting centers, and it’s easy to see how the voteby-mail movement at the state level stalls.
The skepticism and concerns county supervisors raised Monday over Fontes’ plan is a sign of that.
For Phoenix, two options are in play: Go full bore on mail-only voting, risk the wrath of the voting-in-person crowd and chalk up the added expenses as a cost of democracy.
Or, continue with the voting centers — with expanded days but reduced locations — until the Permanent Early Voting List crowd reaches a tipping point and makes mail-only elections the only viable system.
That doesn’t appear likely to happen anytime soon.