Some Arizona politicians are attacking your freedom to vote! They want to steal your power and silence your voice. We’re fighting back, and we need your help. We need you to call your legislators and tell them to protect voters from election sabotage. Tell them to pass a clean fix to the recount deadline issue that protects voters!
All Arizona legislators should be working to protect voters instead of trying to win political points. In 2022, politicians prioritized themselves, and NOT Voters, when they passed a new mandatory recount law increasing the threshold five-fold and giving a windfall of taxpayer-funded recounts to losing candidates.
Now, they want to fix the problem they created at the expense of voters and voter access. That can’t happen. Voters deserve a solution that protects their rights, not one that tramples over them. Tell Arizona legislators to find a solution that protects Arizona voters!
Background
The bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (ECRA) provides that each state’s executive must certify the state’s slate of electors (including the results of the popular vote for president in the state) six days before the date on which the electors meet to officially cast their votes. The new legislation also requires the electors to hold that meeting on “the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December,” which – for purposes of the 2024 presidential election – will be December 17, 2024. Taken together, these provisions mean that state executives must certify their state’s slate of electors by the second Wednesday of December (December 11, 2024) to meet the new deadline.
Arizona’s county recorders have stated that the recount and/or contest procedures lawfully available to candidates could potentially result in certification not being completed by December 11, 2024. In order to meet the deadline, counties have said that they need to save 19 days and think they can save 16 days without changing anything substantive. They believe legislative updates are necessary to meet the new deadline and many county recorders are suggesting cutting the time a voter has to cure their ballot to make up those three days
Arizona law requires automatic recounts if a minimum margin of victory is not met for all elections. In 2022, the Arizona Legislature increased the minimum margin of victory fivefold to require an automatic recount from 0.1% of total votes cast to 0.5% of total votes cast. This means that an automatic recount is all but guaranteed in multiple races in this coming election cycle—even races where the vote margin is way too high for the recount to have an impact. Primary recounts may cut into the time counties need to prepare general election ballots for military and overseas voters. Recounts in the general may prevent counties from being able to meet the December 11, 2024 deadline.
Legislative leadership is considering legislation to fix timeline issues with the election canvass timeline. Instead of proposing a simple fix to this simple issue, they are using this as an opportunity to play political games to expand their access to power. Without legislation with bipartisan support, this will make it impossible to get the 2/3 majority needed to meet this deadline.
