Photo courtesy of Stephen Richer
By Taylor Tasler || KTAR
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer announced Thursday a proposal to make changes to Arizona election laws that could speed up the ballot tabulation system.
The proposal comes months after the state faced criticism for the amount of time it takes to count all the ballots under the current system.
“I think the number one thing that we hear about is ‘we’d like to know the winning candidate faster,’” Richer said.
“Those early ballots come back in their signed and sealed envelopes. Those have to be scanned in, they have to be imaged, they have to be signature verified, they have to be audited, they have to be sent to a bipartisan ballot processing team, and then — only then — can they be sent forward to tabulation,” Richer said.
Richer added the number of these ballots being dropped off during Arizona’s election cycles continues to grow.
