Committee advances bill to ban per-form payment for voter-registration collectors

House Bill 2007, which would prohibit paying a person or entity based on the number of voter registration forms collected, completed or submitted, received a committee due-pass recommendation by a vote of 5–2.

County representatives and the Maricopa County recorder described recurring operational problems when large piles of registration forms are delivered on or near filing deadlines. Jen Morrison of the Arizona Association of Counties told the committee collectors sometimes hold forms for months and then deliver thousands at once, requiring county staff to reallocate personnel to process those submissions. "We are just trying to say, pay them a fair wage, pay them hourly, give them a salary, whatever it is, just not per form," Morrison said.

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap described a recent instance in which tens of thousands of forms arrived in large trash bags on the registration deadline and many were invalid or incomplete, increasing county workload and leading to rejections. He said the proposal is not intended to discourage legitimate voter-registration drives but to remove an incentive to submit low-quality or fraudulent forms in pursuit of per-signature pay.

The committee recorded 5 ayes and 2 nays. Members asked about penalties and enforcement; the transcript indicates some members requested follow-up on enforcement language and penalties during later steps.