Maricopa County promises it’s ready for long 2-page ballot in November

For the first time in nearly 20 years, Maricopa County voters will mark their choices on a two-page ballot in November. 

On Wednesday, election officials in
Arizona’s most populous county announced that voters can expect to
receive two pages, whether they vote early by mail or on Election Day.
The average ballot will carry 79 contests, including the race to become
the 47th President of the United States, positions on local school
boards and seats in the state legislature. The last time the Grand
Canyon State ran a two-page ballot was in 2006, according to a news
release issued by the county.

Adrian Borunda, a spokesperson for
Maricopa County Elections Department said that voters can do research
ahead of time by visiting BeBallotReady.Vote,
where the department expects to upload sample ballots in the next few
weeks. And, he added, Arizonans can avail themselves of early voting or
sign up for mailed ballots to skip Election Day wait times.  

“Voter fatigue is a real thing, when a
voter sees X amount of races,” Borunda said. “It’s obviously a lot
easier to keep their attention and participation with fewer races but
how we’re trying to combat that is obviously having all of our voting
options available. We’re telling people to vote early, take your time.
That’s easier to do when there isn’t as long a line.”

The last day to register to vote is
Oct. 7, and the state’s early voting period begins just two days later.
Voters can request to receive a mailed ballot until Oct. 25. 

The presidential election is expected
to spur high levels of voter turnout. Borunda said the county is
prepared to deal with the increased participation and voters can trust
that there won’t be a repeat of the 2022 midterms. During that election, Maricopa County came under fire after issues with on-site ballot printers at 70 polling places
resulted in confusion and long wait times, when tabulators were unable
to read some of the ballots. Voters were directed to either deposit
their ballots in a special drawer, nicknamed Door #3, for later
tabulation at the county’s election center or check-out of vote centers
experiencing problems to cast their ballots at a different site. 

Borunda said the county has since
gotten rid of the defective printers and has rigorously tested current
elections equipment to ensure it’s up to the task of printing and
counting two-page ballots. Even if problems with on-site tabulators do
arise, Borunda said, Door #3 will still be available as a fail-safe.
Every vote will still be counted, he said. 

But a two-page ballot will likely mean that tabulation and results will be slower, already a point of contention for Arizona voters and those who watch its races closely. Two-page ballots are also expected to cause issues in calculating voter turnout,
since it is usually determined by the number of one-page ballots that
are tabulated — and some voters will inevitably return only one page.

One of the main reasons for this
year’s ballot length is the number of proposed statutory and state
constitutional changes being put to voters, not just in Maricopa County,
but across the state.

Republican lawmakers are responsible for 11 of them, having adopted a strategy of sending wish-list items to the ballot in a bid to circumvent a veto from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. That’s the largest number of legislative referrals since 1984, when lawmakers approved 13. Among them are ballot measures that would preemptively outlaw ranked choice voting, give Arizona police officers and judges the power to jail and deport migrants, and grant state judges lifetime appointments. 

Citizen initiative campaigns succeeded in adding just two proposals to the ballot: one to enshrine abortion protections in the Arizona Constitution and another to establish open primaries. Votes for the latter, however, might not be counted. A trial court is still in the process of determining whether the campaign gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in the first place.