Why is Arizona still counting ballots?
Why is Arizona still counting ballots?
Alia Beard Rau , The Republic | azcentral.com
12:31 p.m. MST November 19, 2016
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(Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)
It's been more than 10 days since voters cast their ballots for the next president. Hillary Clinton has made her concessionary phone call. President-elect Donald Trump is already staffing his Cabinet.
But elections workers in Arizona are still counting ballots. And Arizona isn't even scheduled to announce its final numbers until the Dec. 5 canvass, nearly a month after Election Day and less than two weeks before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19.
“We live in a time where we can send massive amounts of data across the planet in seconds. We can photograph billions of stars in faraway galaxies. But we can’t process our votes.”
Linda Eales, voter
"We live in a time where we can send massive amounts of data across the planet in seconds. We can photograph billions of stars in faraway galaxies. But we can’t process our votes," said frustrated Scottsdale voter Linda Eales, 65. "It's amazing to me."
Arizona isn't alone. Nearly every other state in the country is still counting ballots too, and half of all states won't hold a canvass until December.
Regardless of whether the states limit voting to the polls on Election Day, do all their voting by mail or — like Arizona — are somewhere in between, experts say tabulating votes is not something that's done in a day.
The reasons why are complicated but all boil down to a simple paradox: As states offer more voting options, it makes those votes harder to count.
More choices, more time
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Ballots now get to voters in more ways than ever.
"This is very common throughout the country," said Center for Election Innovation and Research Executive Director David Becker. "The number of mail ballots is growing, particularly in the West. It's going to become more and more important to explain this to voters as more people vote by mail. Times may increase, and there's nothing unusual about that. It means election officials are doing their job."
Arizona is among 27 states that allow voters to cast an absentee ballot by mail without requiring an excuse. Nearly the entire western United States does this. Washington, Oregon and Colorado have eliminated polling places on Election Day and do all of their voting by mail.
Debra Cleaver with vote.org said Colorado has already essentially finished, suggesting maybe all-mail ballots work better.
"There are absolutely some states that are better than others," she said. "I'm not sure why any state is still going. It's 2016; we should be able to design ballots that you can read with a Scantron machine, technology that functioned when I was in elementary school in the early '80s."
Ballots were still being counted in Oregon and Washington, although there is a key distinction. Those states count all ballots that are postmarked by Election Day. Arizona and Colorado require that ballots actually be received by that day.
Colorado Elections Director Jud Choate said he wasn't sure what put Colorado's counting ahead of other states. Colorado mails a ballot to every active voter, but also opens vote centers 15 days prior to the election and on Election Day. A statewide program that's updated in live time prevents voters from voting both by mail and in person.
“When it comes to counting ballots, it's far more important to get it done right than to get it done fast.”
David Becker, Center for Election Innovation and Research
Becker said mailed ballots take longer to tabulate because more steps are required. Election workers must verify the signature on the outside of the envelope. They have to open the envelope. And they have to make sure the voter didn't also cast a ballot at a polling place.
"It's normal and understandable for voters and others to expect 100 percent full results the minute after the polls close on Election Day," he said. "But there are additional steps that go into trying to maintain the integrity of the system. When it comes to counting ballots, it's far more important to get it done right than to get it done fast."
Becker said he believed Wyoming was the only other state so far to finish counting ballots. About 250,000 ballots were cast in Wyoming, compared to Arizona's 2.5 million. According to a 2014 report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Arizona had more absentee ballots cast than any other state in the country.
Becker said he hasn't seen any state find a great solution.
"There is probably something on the market out there that would allow them to do this faster, but there is no magic pot of money that election officials are going to have to buy whatever magic technology might be out there," he said.
"Every election official would love to have larger budgets and the ability to hire more personnel and buy more machines.
But nationwide, states are trying to make do with less. And they're doing a remarkably good job."
Choate said in Colorado, the larger metropolitan counties have purchased some "very sophisticated technology which helps them speed through the review of ballots." The systems quickly sort and process ballots, and have an automatic signature-verification program.
"We're pretty much done at this point," he said, although counties are still processing some provisional ballots.
Cleaver said Arizona's voter ID requirements may be slowing things down and producing more provisional ballots that must be more closely checked.
Or maybe it's one of the many, many arguments for centralized elections, he said.
"Some states seem really capable of administering elections, and some states aren't as capable," she said.
All votes are counted
Rumors abound, particularly on social media, that not all votes are counted. Some theorize that absentee ballots are only counted if the numbers are close. Others say military and overseas ballots aren't counted because they can take so long to arrive.
Eales said that was among her concerns.
"People are afraid that their vote doesn't count," she said. "And then you find out that if you vote early, they haven't counted it? What's the purpose of voting early if your vote is discounted at the ballot box?"
“It's a myth being perpetuated by some fake-news sites that they aren't counted unless the results are close. That's wrong.”
Kay Stimson, National Association of Secretaries of State
But regardless of how long it takes, all votes are counted.
"In every single jurisdiction in the country, Maine to Hawaii, Alaska to Florida, if you cast a ballot and that ballot should be counted, that ballot will be counted," Becker said. "It might not be counted on Election Day or even a week after election night, but by the time the official counts are certified by the state, every ballot is counted."
And Becker said that includes states where the winner's margin is so large that no amount of additional votes would change the outcome.
Kay Stimson, communications director for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said all absentee ballots are always counted.
"It's a myth being perpetuated by some fake-news sites that they aren't counted unless the results are close," she said.
"That's wrong. There are a lot of states still doing counting, in many cases to allow for absentee ballots postmarked by the legal deadline to get to their destination."
It's the law, she and others said.
“All ballots submitted according to state laws are counted in every election,” the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program explains on its website. “The media often will report the projected outcome of the election before all of the ballots are counted. In a close election, the media may report that the outcome cannot be announced until after the absentee ballots are counted. However, all ballots, including absentee ballots, are counted in the final totals for every election — and every vote (absentee or in-person) counts the same.”
But that's only if they're considered valid ballots. There are a myriad of reasons a ballot may not be considered valid and counted. In some Arizona counties, absentee ballots with signatures that cannot be verified by the end of Election Day are not counted.
In contrast, Choate said Colorado sends letters to all of its challenged signatures seeking to verify them.
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