House Republicans advanced a measure to purge as many as 200,000 voters from Arizona’s early ballot mailing list despite concerns from county recorders, who aren’t certain that all counties can even comply with the bill’s mandate.

The Secretary of State’s Office estimates that Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita’s SB1188 would impact tens of thousands of voters who are on the state’s Permanent Early Voting List, or PEVL, that didn’t either mail a ballot back in or drop it off at a polling place or election center for either the primary or general election in two consecutive election cycles.

Ugenti-Rita, a Scottsdale Republican, said Democrat claims that voters will be disenfranchised by being removed from the PEVL rolls are off base – they’ll still be registered to vote, after all, and could either vote in-person or re-up their PEVL registration if they want to get ballots by mail again.

“This is a meaningful improvement because it’s important that our data is accurate and up to date and we’re communicating with voters who want to vote by mail,” Ugenti-Rita said during a House Elections Committee hearing on March 26.  The bill passed 6-4 along party lines.

For those who don’t participate in elections by using the ballot mailed to them, “you’ve clearly demonstrated that voting by mail is maybe not your thing, and that’s OK, it’s not a problem,” she added.

Elections officials would prefer to take a different tact.

If Ugenti-Rita’s concern is ensuring the PEVL database is up-to-date, county recorders already have steps in place to keep the mailing list accurate, according to Jen Marson, executive director of the Arizona Counties Association, which opposed SB1188.

Marson said counties don’t mind another method to ensure PEVL’s accuracy, but they’d prefer it be optional, not mandatory.

And if Ugenti-Rita is concerned by voters who don’t use the ballot mailed to them, some election officials would rather reach out to them and encourage them to vote, said Betty McIntire, a lobbyist for the Secretary of State’s Office, rather than implement a “punitive” bill like SB1188 that “undermines the Permanent Early Voting List.”

There’s also the matter of executing the senator’s proposal.

Marson said recorders in 13 counties are unable to produce a list of voters who would be impacted by the bill. Those counties are on an older voter registration system that can’t compare voters who received a ballot by mail and those who returned it.

While those counties are due for an upgrade to their voter registration system in September later this year, that upgrade never contemplated SB1188, and won’t be able to produce the necessary report, either.

“So now we’re talking about additional programming costs, and nobody can tell me when that might happen,” Marson said.

Only Maricopa and Pima counties were able to estimate how many voters would be impacted by SB1188 had it been in effect the previous two election cycles, but even those estimates weren’t easy to produce – the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office provided three different estimates to the Arizona Capitol Times, which some officials  attributed to uncertainty about the bill’s impact, particularly for independent voters.

Ugenti-Rita told the Capitol Times it’s her intent that the bill would apply to all PEVL voters, even independents who don’t request a ballot for partisan primaries. Independents aren’t automatically sent a ballot by mail in partisan elections, when party voters nominate their candidates for general elections.

To Ugenti-Rita, not requesting a ballot is the same as not participating.

But since existing law states that “a voter’s failure to vote an early ballot once received” doesn’t constitute grounds to remove them from PEVL, some county elections officials aren’t so sure.

“Our interpretation is that we’re talking about those people who received a ballot and then didn’t use it,” Marson said.

That’s just one example of how difficult S1188 is to interpret, and has county recorders worried about implementing the bill if it’s approved and signed into law, Marson added: “The language is bad in the fact that it’s open to this many interpretations is bad.”

SB1188 cleared the committee on a 6-4 party line vote. At every stage in the process, Republicans have nearly unanimously supported the bill, while Democrats have opposed it.

Sen. Heather Carter of Cave Creek is the only Republican to vote against it.