Maricopa County election changes: New dynamic could speed up results

MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. - The primary election is July 21, and this year, a major change on Election Day might mean initial results are released a lot faster. 

Big picture view:

Maricopa County has been under a microscope nationally for how long it takes to count votes. A lot of that is because of how long it takes to verify the signatures of mail-in ballots.

By the numbers:

More than 40,000 signature-verified mail ballots were brought in to be tabulated on July 20 by election workers, marking the last batch before primary Election Day. So far, more than 500,000 votes have been tabulated.

What we know:

Maricopa County Deputy Elections Director Jennifer Liewer showed a major Election Day change for voters. It concerns the so-called "late earlies," which are mail-in ballots that are turned in by hand on Election Day. Those ballots often slow things down because they still need to be signature verified. But now, someone walking in with a mail-in ballot can instead choose to tabulate it directly.

"We're going to scan the bar code and, at that point, that's when the person's address, name, date of birth come up to make sure they haven't already voted," Liewer said.

Once voters show ID, an election worker stamps the envelope, and the voter feeds it into the tabulator so it is counted immediately. The county believes this will significantly lower the backlog of ballots needing signature verification.

"This hopefully is going to address some of those problems, so we really want people to use this during the primary. This is the first time we've done this. We want to make sure it's smooth because, in general, we want people to take advantage of it," Liewer said.

Local perspective:

On FOX 10's Newsmaker, the county recorder said officials have also taken steps to speed up signature verification.

"Instead of days to count to do signature verification after an election, we've cut that down to hours. We've done it in a bipartisan way with more checks and bipartisan oversight from both parties," Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap said. When asked if he believes results will come in sooner, Heap responded, "I am very, very confident."

One of the changes to signature verification sounds simple. Now, when a worker is comparing an envelope signature to one on file, those photos will show up side by side. In previous elections, workers would have to scroll. It takes just a few seconds, but that can add up when talking about hundreds of thousands of ballots.