Maricopa County elections and recorder staff outline CD7 special-election logistics, timelines and security changes

Maricopa County elections officials and the county recorder's staff on Monday described operational plans for the 2025 special primary and general elections in Congressional District 7, including turnout projections, a phased vote-center schedule, signature-verification changes and a recently discovered postal service issue affecting a return checkbox on election mail.

Elections Director Scott Jarrett told the Board of Supervisors there are "just shy of 60,000 voters in Maricopa County" inside CD7, estimating 59,810 registered voters as of the week before the meeting. He said turnout models put primary turnout in Maricopa County between about 20% and 35% and general-election turnout between about 35% and 50%; that would translate to roughly 21,000 to 30,000 total voters in the county portion at the higher end of the range.

Officials flagged several administrative deadlines and timing pressures. The voter registration deadline for CD7 is June 16; the county said the last day to request a mail ballot for the primary moved to July 7 because July 4 is a holiday and statute requires deadlines that fall on a holiday move to the next business day. Recorder staff warned the board that "if they request a ballot after July 3, they will likely need to walk it into a voting center location to have it counted," because mail transit times make a July 7 mail request unlikely to be received in time for processing.

Sam Stone of the recorder's office described a new postal problem discovered late the previous week. "We were notified ... by the United States Postal Service that the checkbox does not work," he said. "We are now going to be informing voters that the checkbox does not work, and that they need to physically write return to sender or RTS on their affidavit envelope and return it through the post office that way." Stone said the issue is a mismatch between USPS machinery and the statutory checkbox language; the recorder's office has asked the county attorney for guidance and said discussions are underway with USPS and the legislature may be needed for a lasting fix.

On ballot security and signature verification, Stone outlined process changes the recorder has instituted: "Signatures are being clipped individually so that the signature verification will have not only the most recent signature, but up to 4 previous signatures on file. They will not see other information outside of the name of the voter." He also described a new double-blind, bipartisan initial review and an auditing step: "Each signature will be reviewed independently by a member of different parties. So, Democrat and a Republican will each do an initial review of the first sig ... and only if both agree that it is a good signature is that then moved forward for processing."

Operational details presented to the board included an eight vote-center plan phased to open some centers 27 days before election day, Avondale City Hall serving as the first 27-day location, and a mixture of early, emergency and election-day vote centers targeted near Tolleson and Avondale where most CD7 voters in Maricopa County reside. Officials said the county would staff roughly 50 to 60 poll workers for voting locations and another 20 to 30 workers for tabulation; the county also estimated reimbursable costs of about $906,000 for the special election.

Officials said tabulation equipment is not connected to the internet, the county will run expanded logic-and-accuracy tests that allow party county chairs to handcraft test ballots and then run them on tabulators, and that military and overseas ballot timelines create additional time pressure: staff said they are planning for a potential automatic recount scenario and the secretary of state's canvass calendar could compress mailing windows for overseas ballots.

The presentations included a public-information push using the county's beballotready.vote site, a social-media and earned-media outreach strategy and a promise to publish final voting-location addresses in an upcoming resolution. County staff told supervisors they had no budget for paid advertising for the accelerated timeline but will seek earned media and can coordinate with supervisors' offices for additional outreach if the board elects to fund paid advertising.