Maricopa County voters likely to see two-page general election ballot
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You might want to set aside a bit more time than usual to fill out your ballot for the November election.
The big picture: Maricopa County's ballots are notoriously long, but this year's might take two pieces of paper to fit all the choices.
Why it matters: A two-page ballot would be unwieldy for voters and could cause logistical problems for election officials.
Zoom in: The county won't know until August how long the ballot will be, but if it requires an extra sheet of paper, the biggest culprit will likely be ballot propositions.
- The Legislature has already referred six statewide propositions to the ballot, plus there's a countywide transportation tax measure.
- GOP lawmakers are poised to refer their Secure the Border Act to the ballot, and measures on issues like K-12 funding, elections and wages for tipped workers are still under consideration.
- A separate citizen initiative on wages for tipped workers, plus others on abortion and open primaries could be on the ballot as well.
By the numbers: County elections director Scott Jarrett tells Axios that anything more than seven ballot measures will require a second page, and the county is 99% sure that'll happen.
- If every legislative referral and citizen initiative that's still under consideration makes the ballot — and some likely won't — Maricopa County voters could decide on more than a dozen propositions.
- That's on top of state, county and local races, presidential candidates with their electors and the myriad judicial retention elections that take up a lot of real estate on the county's ballots.
Between the lines: Maricopa County held a daylong exercise Wednesday to train election workers on how to deal with two-page ballots and to ensure they learn of any problems ahead of time.
- The second page will have judges and ballot propositions to ensure it's exactly the same for every voter.
- The county ran exercises for early in-person voting and Election Day voting to do things like determine how printers would handle the increased workload.
Flashback: Maricopa County last had a two-page ballot in 2006, when there were 19 propositions.
- Jarrett believes that's the only time the county's ballots were two pages.