Photo by Jim Small | Arizona Mirror
Arizona’s Republican legislators are taking another crack at voting law changes, after the Democratic governor vetoed their recent attempt to make the state’s elections more like Florida’s.
But the bills the Arizona Senate approved along party lines, with only Republicans in favor, are almost certainly headed for a veto from Gov. Katie Hobbs as well.
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Two of the proposals, Senate Bill 1097 and Senate Bill 1098, were sponsored by Sen. Jake Hoffman, leader of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus.
One bill, SB1097, would force every public school operated by a school district to close on each primary and general election day and requires schools that have gymnasiums to act as a polling location, at the county’s request.
The proposal would get rid of a provision in state law currently that allows school superintendents to refuse to serve as polling places because of safety concerns or lack of space.
It would also require all other government offices to serve as polling places, at the county’s request.
While Hoffman’s proposal would force schools to close to students on Election Day, it would bar teachers from taking time off that day, something that Sen. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, described as a “slap in the face” to educators.
“It sounds like this law would imply that a teacher is less than other people who do work,” Epstein said. “I cannot fathom why, just because you’re a teacher, you cannot take leave.”
Senate Bill 1097 would also take a less extreme approach to requiring counties to use precinct-based voting than a bill sponsored by another Freedom Caucus member that already passed through the House and the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee.
A precinct-based voting model requires each voter to cast a ballot at their designated location, and if they vote at the wrong location, it won’t be counted. In contrast, any registered voter in the county can cast a ballot at any voting center in the county. Most Arizona counties use voting centers or a mix of precincts and voting centers.
Unlike Rep. Rachel Keshel’s House Bill 2017, Hoffman’s SB1097 would still allow the use of voting centers, but would give priority to precinct-based locations, only allowing voting centers to supplement precinct polling places.
Maricopa and Pima counties, where nearly 75% of the state’s voters live, both use voting centers exclusively.
Before voting against the bill on March 5, Democratic Sens. Theresa Hatathlie, Lauren Kuby and Priya Sundareshan all said they were concerned that, due to an ongoing difficulty finding poll workers, SB1097 would result in a de facto ban on voting centers since staffing precinct locations would take priority. There are 935 precincts in Maricopa County alone, according to voter registration information posted by the county recorder’s office in January. The county opened 246 voting centers during the November 2024 election.
“It’s impossible to do all of it at once,” Sundareshan said.
Kuby and Sundareshan both pointed out that the use of voting centers makes voting easier for people who work far away from home or who recently moved, and eliminates provisional ballots that won’t be counted because they were cast at the wrong location.
Hoffman accused the Democrats of not reading SB1097, which he said would make voting more convenient by forcing schools to provide more polling location options to counties. Hoffman told Epstein that if the requirement for teachers to work on Election Day made her so angry, she should take it up with all the school districts that already have blackout days for time off in their teaching contracts, like the days following fall and winter break — or, in some cases, Election Day.
Sundareshan pointed out that those blackout days were negotiated with the teachers and their unions, not mandated by the state.
Hoffman’s Senate Bill 1098 would require voters who drop off early ballots at a polling place to show identification and sign an affidavit promising that they’re legally allowed to drop off those ballots. In Arizona, voters can only return their own ballot, ballots from family members or housemates or from a person for whom they are a caregiver. Those who violate that law could face a felony charge and more than a year in prison.
Right now, voters can drop off their early ballots in drop boxes or at polling locations without having to provide identification, and the ballots are validated by election workers verifying the ballot envelope signatures.
Republicans lawmakers have been pushing this year to cut down on signature verifications for “late-earlies,” or early ballots dropped off on Election Day, saying that voters demand quicker election results. The signature verification process slows down the reporting of election results when hundreds of thousands of voters drop off their early ballots on Election Day.
On Feb. 19, Hoffman told lawmakers on the Judiciary and Elections Committee that SB1098 gets rid of the “honor system” in which those dropping off early ballots don’t have to prove they’re legally allowed to do so. He claimed that the process would only take “an extra 30 seconds” at the polling location to provide ID or sign an affidavit when dropping off ballots.
Hatathlie said she was concerned that SB1098 included such a serious penalty but included no funding to educate voters.
“Maricopa County is not a state, so we have to look past that and beyond that to the rural counties as well,” Hatathlie said.
Both of Hoffman’s bills will next head to the House of Representatives for consideration.
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