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GOP lawmaker takes 2 routes to eliminate voting centers

Jakob Thorington Arizona Capitol Times//January 24, 2025//[read_meter]

Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, walks in the courtyard of the state Capitol on Jan. 13, 2025. Keshel has introduced an identical bill and ballot referral that would outlaw voting centers if passed. (Photo by Gary Grado/Arizona Capitol Times)

GOP lawmaker takes 2 routes to eliminate voting centers

Jakob Thorington Arizona Capitol Times//January 24, 2025//[read_meter]

Republicans lawmakers advanced legislation Jan. 22 aimed at banning the use of voting centers.

With Gov. Katie Hobbs unlikely to sign any measure that would do so, GOP lawmakers are hoping to get approval from voters on the issue. 

The House Federalism, Military Affairs and Elections Committee passed both HB2017 and HCR2002. The measures are identical, except the concurrent resolution won’t require the governor’s signature to become law. 

Instead, the resolution would go to voters on the 2026 general election ballot if it gets through the Legislature. 

“I also did it in the form of an HCR so it can go to the people and the people can choose to vote for this on the ballot,” said Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, the sponsor of the measures. 

Both pieces of legislation would require election precincts to have no more than 1,000 registered voters and to prohibit the use of voting centers across the state. 

Each measure passed out of committee on party lines. Keshel ran identical legislation last year but her bill didn’t get through the Senate because former Sen. Ken Bennett, who also formerly served as secretary of state, voted against the measure along with Democrats. 

The bill becoming law would present some logistical issues for election administrators across the state, according to Jen Marson, the executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties.

“The reason that vote centers became popular is because we didn’t have enough places to be polling places in a traditional sense,” Marson said Jan. 22. “That’s the piece in terms of logistics that this bill is missing. If it’s mandated that we have to go to a precinct model and we literally cannot find enough spaces, what do we do then.”

The use of voting centers, where registered voters can vote at any eligible voting center instead of a locally assigned precinct-based polling location, is a relatively new practice. Maricopa County used precinct-based voting up until the 2020 election cycle

Almost all counties in the state allow the use of a voting center in some way. Some counties like Gila County use a hybrid model with both precinct voting and vote centers while only three counties exclusively use precinct voting: Apache County, Mohave County and Pinal County.

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is supportive of the precinct model, although the county Board of Supervisors oversees elections. He said he believes the voting center model has led to greater disenfranchisement of voters with long lines or technical issues that have occurred in prior elections. 

“It certainly is easier to use the voting center model on the elections officials, who have to staff these offices and find poll workers,” Heap said.

More than two million ballots were cast in Maricopa County in the 2024 general election, which would require about 2,000 polling places under Keshel’s measure. 

Heap said the 1,000 registered voters per precinct cap that Keshel is proposing could be an issue for a large county like Maricopa. He recommended bumping up the cap to 1,500 registered voters, but said that would still require staffing for about 950 precincts.

“If we limited it to precincts, we’d have an increase in volunteers and an increase in locations. A lot of locations don’t want to necessarily serve as a polling place anymore because they know they might have 10,000 people show up on Election Day at one location,” Heap said. 

Some Republicans also view the early voting period as a balancing act between precinct and centralized-location voting, but Keshel’s measure would repeal state law that allows county recorders to establish on-site early voting locations. Voters could still return early ballots by mail or at a dropbox. 

That provision is one of the main issues for civil rights advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

“Arizonans want the ability to return their signed, sealed and voted early ballot, whether that’s by mail or in person at a voting location,” said Katelynn Contreras, a policy strategist for ACLU of Arizona. 

The bill is flexible in giving a polling location the ability to serve as an on-site early voting location, but Marson said it would be unusual for a place like a school or church to be open the same amount of time that designated voting centers are open and noted precinct locations have only been used on Election Day. 

“Right now, I don’t believe the statutes contemplate that scenario at all and also, you have to have all those places willing to be open for the days of early voting and on (Election Day) Tuesday,” Marson said.

Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said he sees the measure as a way to increase voter access for in-person voters on Election Day for many rural voters who may have to drive farther to participate rather than going to their local polling place at a school or church in their community. 

He said he views voting centers as an unconstitutional poll tax because some voters might not be able to access a voting location by walking. 

“If I have to pay to have a car, put gas in that car, in order to go drive to go vote, I have to pay in order to vote. If I have to pay bus fare in order to ride to a polling location, then I have to pay in order to vote,” Kolodin said. 

 

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