What happens if I mail the ballot early? • Arizona Mirror

What happens if I mail the ballot early? • Arizona Mirror

Voters who want to request early voting only have until Oct. 25, and those ballots must be mailed by Oct. 29 to ensure they arrive by the polling day deadline. But how are these early ballots processed, counted and stored securely – and what can early voting patterns tell us about voter turnout?

Arizona has been at the forefront of early voting and voting by mail, with the vast majority of the state choosing to vote that way. The Arizona Legislature switched from an absentee voting system in 1991, where voters had to demonstrate difficulty voting by mail, to a no-excuse early voting system in 1991.

By 1997, state lawmakers at the Capitol replaced absentee with “early,” and in 2007, the state created a permanent early voting list for voters who wanted to vote early and didn’t want to request a mail-in ballot. every election.

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Although voter turnout and ballot returns fluctuate with the cycle, the number of people who voted in person at early voting sites this year is 170% higher than in 2016 and 9% lower than in 2020. and 2020, according to Maricopa County Recorder spokeswoman Taylor Kinnerup.

“It’s going to be really hard to compare with the previous election,” Kinnerup said. ballot consisting of two pagesFor the first time since 2006, it could lead to a change in voter habits and turnout.

Maricopa County has approximately 13,572 different ballots and an average of 79 contests, including presidential races, local school board positions, seats in the state legislature, and judicial retention elections.

As of Oct. 22, 319,837 ballots had been returned statewide, including 187,882 from Maricopa County voters. Republicans now lead Democrats by more than 19,000 returned ballots.

However, Democratic voter turnout was slightly higher than Republican voter turnout, with 9.56% of Democratic voters participating compared to 9.22% of Republicans. About 4.4% of voters with a political affiliation voted early.

After you mail your ballot, Maricopa County teams collect the ballots from the US Postal Service and dropboxes by county. The ballots are then sent to Runbeck, the ballot printing company, to scan through the signature verification process, as well as to mark the returned ballot in the system to prevent double voting.

Physical voter-marked ballots are never seen by anyone at Runbeck during this process. The physical ballot and proxy envelope will not be delivered to election officials until the proxy envelope is signed.

No election official will physically handle the affidavit envelope or ballot during this process.

If the clerk is unable to verify the signature, the election officer will contact the voter directly to verify the authenticity of the returned envelope.

After all these steps are completed, the ballots – still in their envelopes – are removed from the Runbeck facility’s secure vault to be tabulated. Ballots are then removed from audited envelopes and verified as being from that election before the tabulations are issued.

Bilateral teams of two ensure that each ballot and proxy envelope is separated to maintain the integrity of the voter’s secret ballot. If the ballot is not read or if there is an excess vote, if the ballot has more votes than allowed, it will be sent to the decision.

If this happens, a bipartisan team will evaluate the ballot to determine what the voter’s intent was, and both team members must agree on the decision.

Finally, those tabulated results are then stored on computer servers that are air-gapped, meaning they have no access to the internet. These computers cannot be accessed until Election Day, except for high-ranking unelected voters. These early voting ballots will be the first set of results announced on election night.

If you plan to vote early, you can find out what’s on the ballot district site it also helps educate voters who are waiting to vote on election day. Voters who want to make sure they are on the early mailing list, check their voter registration, or request a mail-in ballot can do so at: BeBallotReady.Vote.

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