PHOENIX — Mail ballots dropped off on Election Day will be signature-verified the next day, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap promised Thursday, a process that has taken days in previous years.
Election workers check the signature on the green affidavit envelope against other signatures in the voter’s record. That includes mail ballots voters drop off at a vote center or drop box on Election Day – the so-called “late earlies.”
Heap, who oversees early voting, has revamped the signature-verification process. He told ABC15 the new system will be faster and more accurate.
“I'm confident we'll have all the late early ballots done and signature verified by noon the following day after election, which is a dramatic increase over previous years,” he said.
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Heap said the new signature-verification process has improved technology that makes it faster to compare signatures and be more accurate.
“We've managed to cut the time that it takes for us to do signature verification after an election on those late ballots that come in, from days down to hours,” he said.
Heap said the process is bipartisan, “so both Republicans and Democrats can be confident that there was no partisan hand on it.”
“Every signature will go digitally to two different people of two different parties,” he said. “If either one of them doesn't agree, then that system goes to a second tier, where we have a second bipartisan team.”
The revamped process has resulted in a “slight increase” in the number of rejected ballots, Heap said, adding the county is still within the national average.
A rejected ballot, he said, “means four different people have reviewed this and agreed that it's not consistent with what we have on file.”
A quicker process also means election workers who verify signatures can move to contacting voters with rejected ballots to “cure,” or verify, their ballots, Heap said.
It’s not the only way ballot counting could be faster.
Starting this year, voters who drop off their early ballots at a vote center can skip the signature-verification process by showing identification. If they take their ballot to a vote center on Election Day, they can also tabulate it just like an in-person voter.
According to the county, about 25% of voters chose one of the new options in the July primary.
Heap spoke with reporters Thursday after a tour of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in downtown Phoenix for RightCount Arizona, an election group chaired by former Gov. Jan Brewer.
Several current and former Republican elected officials, including the recorders from Pinal and Yavapai counties got an overview of MCTEC from Scott Jarrett, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ elections director.
The county is finalizing the November ballot – and it will be a double-sided, one-page ballot, Jarrett said.
Ballots get mailed to overseas and military voters on Sept. 19. Early voting begins and mail ballots go out on Oct. 7.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
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