State House Passes Bill to Refer Measure to Ballot That Would Ban Vote Centers in Arizona, Return Voting to Precincts

A bill that would return voting to precincts instead of at large vote centers passed the State House of Representatives along party lines on Tuesday, 32-26. If HCR 2002, sponsored by Representative Rachel Jones (R-Tucson), passes the State Senate, it will be sent to the ballot since it is a House Concurrent Resolution, bypassing any likely veto by Governor Katie Hobbs. The bill would establish precincts with no larger than one thousand registered voters, and states that county supervisors may not revert back to vote centers.

Republicans who support the bill say it’s necessary due to the botched 2022 election, where ballot on demand printers failed to print the proper sized ballots, disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters. With precinct level voting, there is no need for those printers, since ballots don’t need to be customized for each person regardless of where they vote within the county, they are printed in advance specific to each precinct.

Jones proposed a similar bill last year, which failed to pass out of the State Senate. However, Jones said during a hearing of the House Federalism, Military Affairs and Elections Committee in January discussing the bill that the Republican senator who voted with the Democrats to oppose it, Ken Bennett, is no longer in the state legislature, having been defeated in the primary by conservative Representative Mark Finchem (R-Prescott).

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap testified in favor of the bill at the January hearing. He said proponents of the vote centers claimed that it would make voting easier, since people wouldn’t have to drive as far. “For the most part it has done the opposite,” he said, stating that it has made elections easier for election officials but not for voters. “It was presented a certain way to the voters, in a way that I actually think is more appealing to the people who have to run elections than to necessarily the voters.”

“But I, from my perspective and the point of my campaign and my reason for running is always that I want to reinstill confidence in our voting system among the voters, and I think precinct voting actually helps to reinspire confidence … the people you are voting with are the people who live all around you, the poll workers tend to be the people who you live with.”

Heap went on, “Since we have moved from that, that situation. It has made voting longer, more expensive and more difficult. … I would point out though on Election Day, where we have more than hour long waits. As soon as the line of the voting center gets very long — and they consistently do — we immediately begin disenfranchising voters.” He said the vote centers have had “fairly consistent problems since implemented.” Heap said he waited in line for two hours to vote on Election Day in 2022, and saw dozens of people leave and give up. He said many of those voters may have been disenfranchised.

He said more people would volunteer for precinct voting, and more locations would be more eager to host polling since there would be fewer voters at each.

Caitlin Contreras of the Arizona ACLU testified and said the bill puts up barriers to voting. Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), an election attorney, responded and said it does the opposite. He asked her why she didn’t care about voters in the rural areas of his district who have to drive farther to vote at vote centers. She responded, “I think there’s a question that’s better left up to tax recorders and election directors and board supervisors, since they are the ones that actively determine where those centers will be.”

Chair John Gillette (R-Kingman) sarcastically pushed back against Contreras and other speakers who opposed the bill. “We’re trying to eliminate all affirmative diligence on the voter and ensure the government ensures that voter votes and can’t make a mistake on anything. There is a responsibility on the citizen to go to the right polling place to make sure it’s turned in on time, all these options. And I think we’re trying to make these options more simple in this bill.”

In response to Democrats’ criticisms that it would be too difficult to significantly increase the number of polling locations, Gilette said counties could use county jails, parks, fire stations, and police stations as polling places. Kolodin said private citizens could rent out their homes or Airbnbs.

Kolodin told a representative from the Sierra Club that her organization should be supporting precinct voting, since people would use less gas due to driving to precinct locations close to their homes. He told a representative from the Arizona Association of Counties, Jen Marson, that one of the larger counties in the state, Pinal, has no problems continuing to use precinct voting, able to find enough locations.

Kolodin said, “This bill is really about whether we want to have a system of voting that is easier for the government, or whether we want to have one that is easier for voters, and passing this bill signifies that this body’s priority is making our voting system easier one for voters to access. … the use of vote centers is unconstitutional because it constitutes a poll tax. If I have to pay to have a car to put gas in that car in order to drive to go vote, I have to pay in order to vote. … The second reason that our current system of voting disenfranchises voters is the printing and scanning issues … [that caused problems in 2022].

Marson admitted that a recent law requires government buildings to be used as polling locations if requested by counties. However, she said it would not provide enough locations. Gillette expressed his skepticism that all those buildings becoming available would not be enough. He pointed out that there are schools and fire stations in multiple neighborhoods.

State Representative Khyl Powell (R-Gilbert) pointed out that most people don’t even vote on Election Day, there is about a month leading up to the election where people can vote early, and the vast majority of people vote by mail. Jones noted that 80 percent vote by mail, and said it’s “election month,” not Election Day, which she disagrees with. She pushed back on the opposition, “We did this for decades.” Kolodin clarified that precincts could still offer early onsite voting if they opted to. Voters can also drop off ballots, including in drop boxes, up until Election Day.

Vote centers are relatively new in the state, and around half the counties have not adopted them. The two largest counties, Maricopa and Pima counties, both use them. Maricopa County adopted them in 2018.

Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda said during a series of interviews in 2023 prior to becoming chair that Maricopa County claimed moving to vote centers would make it easier to vote since the centers were located along the light rail line, but said that’s not what happened.

“Well, you know what, what’s not along the light rail, a lot of elderly suburban voters are not along the light rail,” she said during an interview with The Jenny Beth Show. “Because the light rail doesn’t go there. So what has happened, if you look at the disbursement of these vote centers, is it is making people travel far, far, much farther than they would’ve had to travel in a precinct. … It is my personal opinion that this is a cast on steam nudge effort to push people to voting by mail.”

Additionally, she observed that switching from precinct voting to vote centers did not increase turnout as election officials claimed it would, which they did in order to convince voters the switch would be beneficial.

Jones also sponsored a regular bill with the same exact language, HB 2017, which also passed the State House and would need to go through Hobbs.

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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Polling Place” by Tony Webster CC2.0.