Here’s how Arizona voters who drop off early ballots on Election Day can speed up results

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is encouraging voters to take advantage of a new in-person voting option designed to produce faster election results.

“They can bring their mail-in ballot into one of the polling places, show ID, have their ID verified, they can get it stamped right there and it will bypass signature verification and curing and be tabulated,” Heap told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Friday.

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Heap said the option will be available through Election Day, which is Tuesday for Arizona’s midterm primaries.

“Even if it’s Election Day and you still have your green envelope, you can go into a polling place on Election Day, show ID; once you’re verified, they’ll open that envelope and you can feed it through the tabulator yourself,” he explained.

A state law allowing voters to show identification at the polls to skip signature verification on early ballots was passed in 2024. It’s designed to reduce the number of signatures that need to be verified by election workers after the polls close.

Voters have several options for Election Day

Mail ballots can still be placed in drop boxes until the polls close at 7 p.m., but they don’t get tabulated until the signatures are cleared. Voters also have the option of filling out ballots and having them tabulated at the polls on Election Day.

“We never know how many we’re going to get in any cycle,” Heap said of the “late-early” drop-offs. “And so, we will still certainly have late-early. Those are people who just drop it in the drop box.”

Heap said that while he hopes voters take advantage of the new ID verification system, his staff is well prepared to handle the signature verification process.

“Even if we get a large portion, I think we have made such significant improvements in our office on how we do signature verification … [that] we’ll have our part of the signature verification probably done by noon the following day,” he said.

“So, unless races are close, hopefully we’ll be able to call races fairly quickly.”

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