PHOENIX — Voter rights groups asked the Arizona Supreme Court on Saturday to extend the deadline for voters to resolve problems with their mail-in ballots, following delays in counting votes and in notifying voters of problems.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center asked the state’s high court in an emergency motion that the original 5 p.m. Sunday deadline be extended up to four days after a voter has received a notice of problem.
The groups argued in the petition that “tens of thousands of Arizonans are at risk of being disenfranchised without notice, let alone the ability to take action to ensure their ballots are counted.”
“Because these ballots were not even processed, Defendants failed to identify the defective ballots and failed to notify voters of the need to correct these defects,” the petition states.
Arizona law says people who vote by mail must be notified of any problems with their ballot, such as a signature that doesn’t match the one on file, and given an opportunity to correct it within of a process called “healing”.
The groups’ petition noted that as of Friday evening, more than 250,000 mail-in ballots had not yet been verified by signature. Most of them were in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa County.
Just under 200,000 early ballots remained to be processed Saturday, according to estimates posted on the Arizona Secretary of State’s office website.
Taylor Kinnerup, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Registrar’s Office, said he was proud to conduct “accurate and timely” signature verification, and that all signatures for the general election were processed before the end of the day Friday, “giving voters the signatures questioned had sufficient time to cure their signature.
“As an administrative agency, our office is bound by the letter of the law which gives a voter up to five calendar days after an election to correct their signature,” Kinnerup said. “Voters are contacted directly if their signature is questioned, but can also choose to see if their ballot needs to be corrected online at BeBallotReady.Vote.”
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Gabriel Sandoval is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues.
