The deadline to mail back an early ballot has passed, but Maricopa County voters who still have theirs have two ways to get it counted before polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, county election officials told Arizona's Family.
One is any open county ballot drop box. The other is new this year: voters can carry the sealed green return envelope into a voting location, show ID, open it and run the ballot through the tabulator on the spot.
"If they drop it in a drop box, which they absolutely can do, so then it does need to come back here and be signature-verified," said Jennifer Liewer, the county's deputy elections director.
A postmark does not count in Arizona. Ballots dropped off and ballots cast at a polling site alike have to be in election officials' hands by 7 p.m. Tuesday. Anyone in line at 7 p.m. can still vote; Liewer said poll workers go out at that hour and mark the end of the line.
Election Day in Maricopa County
A crew of over 4,000 poll workers is set to staff 254 polling locations across the county on Tuesday, and officials expect about 350,000 people to vote that day. Liewer said Election Day staffing is focused on those sites, where voters can have a ballot printed and tabulate it themselves. Early ballots are not run through the central tabulation center on Election Day itself.
Wait times, open drop boxes and polling locations are posted at elections.maricopa.gov. Voters can also sign up for county text or email alerts that follow a ballot from arrival through processing until it is cleared for counting.
