Key Points:

• Voting centers and early voting locations for primary and general elections would be banned under the bill
• The bill would also limit an election precinct to a maximum of 1,000 registered voters
• Democrats and other opponents have said the law would be physically impossible to implement

A bill that would ban voting centers and early voting locations while limiting election precincts to a maximum of 1,000 voters passed the Legislature on April 29.

House Bill 2017 would prohibit a county board of supervisors and county recorders from establishing voting centers and early voting locations during primary and general elections.

An identical measure, House Concurrent Resolution 2002, that would allow voters to decide the issue was also progressing through the Legislature. It was awaiting a hearing in the Senate Rules Committee.

Bill sponsor Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, previously stated that voting centers cause more chaos during elections, slowing the vote-counting process and eroding voters’ faith in the election process. Keshel ran a similar bill last year that failed in the House.

“I think when I started voting many, many years ago, I went to my local church or school in my precinct, I saw my neighbors, I saw my friends, and we all voted together, and we got our election results much faster,” Keshel said during the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee hearing on March 5.

Keshel told the committee that she capped the number of voters at 1,000 per precinct based on feedback she received from election workers.

“Some of us feel that when you have so many ballots coming in, and specifically with the voting centers, they’re coming in from many different precincts, that it’s just harder to manage,” she said.

However, those who oppose the measure referred to the bill as another form of voter suppression and said it would be impossible to implement because counties would have to drastically increase the number of poll workers and voting locations.

According to a Joint Legislative Budget Committee fiscal note, the bill would require 3,957 new voting locations statewide and more than 27,000 additional poll workers. The JLBC estimated that it would cost counties $10.8 million for Election Day, including staff and site use, as well as one-time equipment costs of $31.5 million.

Maricopa County would require 2,457 new locations, along with more than 17,000 additional poll workers, while Pima County would need 574 locations and 4,200 workers. Pinal County would have to add 206 locations and 1,500 workers.

Eight counties utilize voting centers: Cochise, La Paz, Maricopa, Navajo, Pima, Santa Cruz, Yavapai and Yuma, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Five other counties use a hybrid system with precincts and voting centers: Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee and Mohave. 

“So where will we find those extra sites?” said Sen. Analise Ortiz, D-Phoenix, during the Senate third read hearing on April 29. “Where will we find the extra 27,000 poll workers who would be needed under law to staff all of these polling places? The reason counties started switching to a vote center model is because they couldn’t find enough locations.”

Ortiz said the bill could further disenfranchise voters in rural areas and minority communities.

“Voting centers allow voters the flexibility to vote throughout the day, and if we are to get rid of it, it will make it harder to vote, especially for working Arizona, especially for rural Arizona, and especially for voters of color,” she said.

Sen. Lauren Kuby, D-Tempe, said the bill won’t lead to faster voting results and the proposed setup could lead to technology issues.

“We know it’s for sure going to be vetoed by the governor, and it doesn’t do anything towards creating a faster voting system, which I hear my colleagues say they want to see,” Kuby said. “It will plague our voting system along the lines of technology issues, and I just simply don’t understand the motive for bringing this forward.”

Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, defended the bill by pointing out that Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador all use strictly precinct voting.

“I find it interesting that quite often when government officials say we can’t, it actually means we won’t,” Finchem said. “It’s a big difference between the two. One has to do with the will to perform for the people. The other has to do with ignoring the calls for what the people want.”