Voters turning out for Arizona's special election on education funding and pension overhaul plans were able to cast their ballots Tuesday without waiting in the long lines that marred March's presidential primary.
A volunteer at a polling location in south Phoenix said Tuesday afternoon the site hadn't seen more than a dozen voters all day. Poll workers at locations around Phoenix, Glendale, Tempe and Scottsdale said they hadn't seen any lines.
Maricopa County nearly doubled its number of voting centers from the 60 used in March, county elections department spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew said.
Some in the county had waits longer than five hours in March, which prompted outrage from many voters.
But special elections typically have a lower turnout than presidential primaries.
Ashlee Gonzales, 26, had it easy on Tuesday. She walked into her downtown Phoenix polling place, dropped off an early voting ballot, and then went on with her day. That was a far cry from when she voted in the presidential primary.
She reported to the same spot, but had to wait more than an hour. In her experience, the March election was an outlier.
"It's usually like this anyways," she said.
The four most populous counties in Arizona mailed out more than 1.8 million early ballots. An Associated Press survey of election directors in Maricopa, Pima, Pinal and Yavapai counties found more than 42 percent of those ballots had been turned in by Monday morning.
Proposition 123 is a plan to pump $3.5 billion in new money into the state's K-12 school system over 10 years using general fund and trust land cash.
It is designed to settle a long-running lawsuit over school funding. Schools sued over the Legislature's failure to follow a voter-approved law and increase school funding each year to adjust for inflation.
The measure would provide about 70 percent of what schools said they were owed and stops a court fight that has already dragged out for more than five years.
Stephanie Eastman, 68, said the state shouldn't have to use additional money from the trust and as a result voted against the proposition.
"I feel like they're threatening us with it," she said.
Gov. Doug Ducey, lawmakers and many education community leaders support the deal. Opponents include state Treasurer Jeff DeWit and the League of Women Voters of Arizona.
Proposition 124 would ratify a major part of an overhaul of the police and firefighter pension system that was enacted by the Arizona Legislature earlier this year.
The changes voters must ratify include lower cost-of-living increases for current and future retirees and are designed to help the retirement system for public safety officers recover from a major drop in the plan's funded status. The funding level has sunk to just 50 percent of its expected liabilities while employers have seen their contribution rates soar to an average of more than 42 percent of an employee's salary.
The larger overhaul of the pension system establishes a new tier for newly hired officers, limiting maximum pension payments and equalizing employer and employee contribution rates.
Ann Ridenour, 80, said she supported Proposition 124, but wished that new public safety employees could receive the same benefits as their more experienced colleagues.
"It doesn't seem quite fair," she said.
