Panel advances bill to extend county deadline to verify recall petition signatures

The Arizona House Committee on Federalism, Military Affairs and Elections voted to give Senate Bill 10-40 a due-pass recommendation after hearing testimony that counties need more time to verify petition signatures for recall elections.

The measure would lengthen the period the county recorder has to review and remove disqualified petition signatures and extend other timelines tied to special recall elections. Committee members ultimately voted 7-0 to recommend the bill.

County elections representatives told the committee that recall elections require counting and verifying every signature, unlike a general election where signatures are verified only if challenged. Garrett Glover of the Pinal County Recorder and Elections Department said verifying signatures is labor intensive: "In the event of a recall of the governor, it would be closer to 700,000 signatures verified statewide," and added counties typically verify about 1,000 petition signatures per day in their processes.

Sponsor remarks and county testimony said the change is intended to avoid conflicts with ballot printing and internal ballot proofing deadlines. Senator Kavanaugh, the bill sponsor, told the committee counties asked for the change and that the extension aims to address printing deadlines and the workload of signature verification. He told members the extension would not delay an election to the next regular cycle: "It's not gonna be delaying this for, like, until, like, the next November or the next, August or September," he said.

Committee members asked whether the bill applies only to recall elections; staff and witnesses said the bill is intended to address recalls and that staff would prepare clarifying language. Representative Collinan asked staff to prepare an amendment to ensure the timelines apply only to recall elections.

Action taken: the committee retained the bill on the calendar earlier to allow the sponsor to attend, then recalled it and gave it a due pass recommendation by recorded vote (7 ayes, 0 nays). The committee also discussed adding an amendment to clarify that specified timeline changes apply only to recall elections.

The committee did not take final action to change statutory text in the hearing; staff and the sponsor signaled they would prepare clarifying language before the bill moves further.