Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force election officials to provide a way for voters who show up at the wrong polling place to cast a valid ballot, according to a new court decision striking down a key provision of the state’s election rulebook.In 2023, Fontes wrote a policy into the state’s election procedures manual directing counties that assign voters to polling places to allow out-of-precinct voters to cast their ballots on accessible voting devices, which state and federal law requires must be available at every polling place for voters with disabilities. Before that, voters had no way to cast a valid ballot if they showed up at the wrong polling location.Weeks before the 2024 election, Fontes, a Democrat, sued Pinal County, a bright-red jurisdiction sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, for failing to comply with the new policy. A Pinal County Superior Court judge ruled that the county was violating state law by not following the rule, but declined to force it to comply in that election. Later, the Arizona Supreme Court similarly ruled that it was far too close to the election to compel the county to change course. Since then, the two sides have continued to fight the issue in court.In Friday’s decision, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled that the policy usurped counties’ authority and threatened to disenfranchise disabled voters, who may be forced to wait in line to use an accessible machine. He noted it would place administrative burdens on local election officials, requiring them to “substantially rework” poll workers’ training and load all of the county’s ballot styles onto its accessible voting devices. He also found that precinct-based voting was not a form of disenfranchisement.“Requiring a person to identify their polling place and then travel there does not deprive anyone of the right to vote — this is, in fact, a ‘usual burden of voting,’” he wrote, citing prior case law.Pinal is one of two counties in the state that assigns voters to polling places based on their precinct. Nine other counties in the state use vote centers, which allow voters to cast their ballots at any polling location within county limits. The state’s four remaining counties use a hybrid model that combines vote centers with precinct-based voting locations. The ruling applies to all counties that use precinct-based polling places.Calli Jones, a spokesperson for Fontes, called Blaney’s decision “disappointing.” She said the ruling would “make it harder for voters with a disability to vote in Pinal County than in any other county in Arizona.”“However, while our office looks to our next steps, we recognize that this ruling affects only one very small provision in a manual that gives the counties very clear guidance on election administration issues,” she said, adding that the rulebook would serve as a “sound guiding light as we head into the election season.”In Pinal County, officials celebrated the decision. Board of Supervisors Chair Jeffrey McClure said in a statement that the issue was “a matter of principle.”“Pinal County has always utilized the precinct-based voting model, and our voters tell us they want to keep it that way, primarily for reasons of security and control,” he said. “State statutes are very clear — it’s only the Board of Supervisors that has the authority to move to a voting center model, which is effectively what this provision was.”Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis said the ruling was an important victory for local election control.“Voters, through their locally elected leaders, retain the right to make these decisions,” she said. “That right is not erased by administrative overreach, no matter how ambitious the effort.”Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.
