On the eve of the turn-in period for candidates’ nominating petitions, lawmakers fast-tracked a bill to clear up confusion over how many signatures legislative candidates need to qualify for the 2022 ballot.
By Jeremy Duda |Arizona. Mirror
Photo by Garry Knight | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Congressional and legislative candidates who find themselves needing an unusually high number of signatures due to complications from redistricting will now be able to submit a lower number. Those who were assigned an abnormally low number by the secretary of state’s calculations will be able to maintain that low threshold.
In order to qualify for the Aug. 2 primary election ballot, candidates must collect a minimum number of signatures on their qualifying petitions, which, for legislative and congressional hopefuls, is equal to one half of 1% of the voters in their district who are eligible to sign. State law requires the Secretary of State’s Office to make those calculations based on voter registration numbers on Jan. 2 of the election year.
Because Arizona’s new congressional and legislative districts weren’t officially adopted by the state until after that deadline, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs used the old districts to determine the minimum number of signatures that candidates need to collect.
