In AZ, voting by mail already commonplace
Getting a ballot by mail and voting early is a ritual for most Arizona voters, and campaigns as well as election officials are urging voters to do so again in November — despite the national furor.
The Arizona Republican Party is sending out mailers to voters that include forms to request delivery of a ballot. And the first night of the Democratic National Convention included a direct appeal for voters to sign up to vote by mail.
For years, Arizona election officials have pushed voting by mail as a safe opshore tion.
The process had been embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike, and candidates have promoted voting by mail as part of their voter outreach.
The vast majority of Arizonans now vote by mail instead of at the polls.
Election officials have also emphasized voting by mail this year amid a pandemic that has led some counties to cut back on polling places.
When suggested changes at the Postal Service raised questions about returning ballots by mail, election officials railed about the changes.
When Postal Service officials backed down, local officials began trying to up the public’s confidence in the process.
Record numbers of people in Arizona and around the country are expected to vote in advance of the Nov. 3 election.
Mail ballots back early
The Postal Service advised states earlier this summer that voters should mail ballots back to election officials seven days before Election Day, rather than six days as previously recommended in Arizona.
The Postal Service warned Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in a July letter that it might not be able to deliver some mail ballots from voters to election officials in time to be counted under the state’s current deadlines.
The letter from Postal Service general counsel and executive vice president Thomas J. Marshall noted Arizona voters can ask for a mail ballot up to 11 days before Election Day. County officials have up to two days to issue the ballot. That leaves voters nine days to receive, fill out and return the ballot.
The letter, first reported by The Washington Post, also noted Arizona does not count ballots received by mail after Election Day. A liberal super PAC and the group Voto Latino filed a lawsuit last year over the policy and asked a judge to move Arizona’s deadline to allow the counting of late ballots.
Hobbs settled the case this year without moving the deadline and committed instead to additional awareness and outreach efforts.
Hobbs said the state is “preparing to meet this challenge.”
“The good news is that Arizona has a tried and true ballot-by-mail process, and for years we have been encouraging voters to mail their ballots back early,” she said.
For the November election, the Secretary of State’s Office is now encouraging voters to mail back ballots by Oct. 27 and reminding voters they can skip ahead at any voting location to drop off a mail ballot.
Officials are also increasing the number of secure drop boxes around the state where voters can deposit mail ballots, Hobbs added.
Arizona politicians of both parties support the process
Campaigns and politicians are still encouraging voters in Arizona to vote by mail.
State Senate President Karen Fann and House Speaker Rusty Bowers, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that they are confident the Postal Service can handle any additional mail related to early voting.
“We want to make it very clear that the U.S. Postal Service in Arizona has done an effective job of delivering early ballots and will continue to do so,” they wrote.
Still, between the pandemic and talk of changes at the Postal Service, politicians and campaigners have urged voters to think about how and where they will vote well in advance of Election Day.
In her speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, former First Lady Michelle Obama called on voters to sign up to receive a ballot in the mail immediately and return it quickly once they get it.
“We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow up to make sure they’re received,” she said.
In Arizona, all 15 counties and the secretary of state have committed to send every registered voter a form to request a ballot by mail if the person is not already signed up to receive one.
‘Historic’ primary turnout and no issues with mail
Election officials around the state said they did not notice any problems with mail service during the Aug. 4 primary election.
Hobbs said turnout in the primary was “historic,” at about 36% of registered voters.
About 94% of the voters who participated in Maricopa County’s primary earlier this month cast an early ballot, most of which were sent by mail. That is up from 85% in the 2018 primary, making for a total of about 860,000 ballots.
About 4,000 ballots arrived late — more than double the amount that arrived after the 7 p.m. Election Day deadline during the 2018 general election.
But as a proportion of votes cast early, that number is in line with previous primary elections.
The 2020, 2018 and 2014 August primary elections all saw about 0.5% of early ballots returned late. In 2016, it was about 0.9%.
Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson said it’s not clear why more voters return their ballots late during primary elections, but it could be related to voter interest.
More voters participate in general elections and there is generally more national hype around these elections since they occur on the same day in every state.
Primary election dates differ depending on the state and are generally less promoted by campaigns and other outside groups.
And this year, Arizona pushed up its primary by three weeks.
Gilbertson said she is not aware of any issues with the Postal Service that could have contributed to late ballot returns.
She said Maricopa County has a good relationship with the local postmaster. Elections employees are allowed to go to the post office before the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day to check for any ballots that may have reached the post office but not the county’s mailbox, she said.
Coconino County Recorder Patty Hansen said her office had also received more late ballots than usual but added that it is not clear whether that was due to the Postal Service.
Her office encouraged more voters to cast ballots by mail this year due to the coronavirus and postmarks indicated many late ballots were mailed the day before or on Election Day.
Similarly, in Pima County, the Recorder’s Office reported that many of the late mail ballots appear to have been mailed on or after Election Day.
Post office changes raise concerns
Under new postmaster general Louis DeJoy, the Postal Service has made changes to limit overtime and increase efficiency, which according to an internal memo, could result in mail temporarily being delayed.
DeJoy said he is suspending several changes to the Postal Service until after the election to avoid the appearance of any impact on the election.
Reports have highlighted reductions in processing capacity, but the Postal Service maintains it has plenty of capacity to process mail in Arizona.
“We have significant more processing capability in those machines than what we need,” Rod Spurgeon, a Postal Service spokesman, said.
Efforts to undermine confidence
While the Republican Party has encouraged his supporters to vote by mail, President Donald Trump has routinely sought to undermine the public’s confidence in voting by mail.
During a visit to Phoenix in June, the president said mail-in balloting “is a disaster for our country.”
More recently, the president has said he opposes additional funding for the Postal Service because he doesn’t want to expand its ability to handle mail-in ballots.
He has claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are vulnerable to fraud.
In turn, Democrats have argued that the president is trying to undermine the Postal Service in order to undermine the election as he trails Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the polls.
Hobbs, a Democrat, asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Friday to investigate the president.
“The president explicitly admitted to an intentional effort to interfere with the USPS’ ability to deliver ballots by mail,” she wrote in a letter last week to Brnovich, a Republican, citing numerous comments by the president.
The Attorney General’s Office called the allegations “purely speculative” and said Hobbs had not presented any evidence that the delivery of any ballot in Arizona had been delayed.