Voting Centers To Replace Precincts In Pima County 2022 Elections

TUCSON, AZ — Starting with the August 2022 election, Pima County voters will cast ballots at the voting center of their choice, instead of voting at a designated location for their precinct.

This change came via a 4-1 vote of the Pima County Board of Supervisors Tuesday to replace precincts with voting centers. Supervisor Steve Christy was the only supervisor who voted against the measure.

"This is a revolutionary process in Pima County," Christy said during the meeting. "I think it's going to create so many problems and I'm just praying that it doesn't end up as an unmitigated disaster."

Vice Chair of the board Adelita Grijalva acknowledged that the switch to voting centers would be a big change for the county and advised that the county keep the public updated on its progress and to publicly answer questions about the change. Eleven other Arizona counties already use the voting center model, and Pima County has used it for early voting since 2002. The county does not plan to make any changes to its early voting system this year.

Christy said he believes it's inadvisable for County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly to implement such a huge overhaul ahead of her first big election in the office, especially with some important positions in her office unstaffed. Those positions include IT manager, elections director and deputy elections director, Christy said.

While county staff have said that the voting centers should be implemented this year, because the 2024 election is too important of a time for such a change, Christy said that this year's election is just as important. Christy is the lone Republican on the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

"Red, blue and purple counties use voting centers," Supervisor Rex Scott said during the meeting. "This should not be a partisan matter."

The board also voted 4-1 Tuesday — with Christy again dissenting — to begin using e-poll books, which county staff said would cut down the check-in time for voters from around 3 minutes to 30 seconds.

With the e-poll book system, each ballot will be printed on-demand when a person shows up to vote. This means no blank ballots sitting around and no blank ballots to deal with after an election has ended. Other voting procedures will remain the same, and voters will still cast paper ballots, the county said in a news release.

Several supervisors, including Chairwoman Sharon Bronson, had questions about the security of using e-poll books, especially when it comes to protecting voter registration information. She added that storing any information in the cloud made her nervous.

The IT workers in the recorder's office, the Elections Department and for Pima County have all worked together on this project to make sure the e-poll book voting process will be safe and secure, Cázares-Kelly said. She added that the data would all be encrypted.

Every other county in Arizona, besides Pima County, already uses e-poll books.

Pima County's Election Integrity Commission backed the plans for both voting centers and e-poll books.

Voting Center Locations

The Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on proposed voting center locations in April. The Pima County Elections Department has recommended at least 100 voting centers, but a final decision could include more than that.

The proposed sites are set to be larger than precinct locations and to be more accessible to public transportation and pedestrian traffic. The proposed voting center sites were also chosen based on the amount of parking available, including accessible spots for people with disabilities. The Elections Department also aimed to choose locations near populations who don't speak English, and close to voters with disabilities and low-income communities that have many residents without personal transportation.

Grijalva said she wants to ensure that voting center locations are not chosen based on which political party happens to rule the Board of Supervisors at any given time and where more of their voters might live or frequent.