PHOENIX — Monday morning, the Secretary of State certified the results of the August 4 primary. Record turnout and, truth be told, no major issues. That's with nearly 80% of the vote sent in by mail.
"Folks should have confidence the bi-partisan system we set up with the Board of Supervisors is going to serve them well," says Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat.
Fontes is confident Arizona voters will go to the polls in record numbers in November. Nearly all of them will be voting by mail.
"We had 800,000 in the primary, a little over that," Fontes says. "I'm shooting for 2-million. Let’s see if we can top that."
On Friday, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs expressed concern that President Trump was tampering with the election. She made a request to the Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate.
Hobbs believes the President is planting confusion with voters. First, by criticizing ballots sent in by mail. Secondly, by promising to block $30,000,000,000 in aid to help the Postal Service deal with an anticipated avalanche of mail-in ballots from pandemic stricken states. A letter to Hobbs from the General Counsel of the Postal Service warned ballots not mailed by October 27 may not arrive in time to be counted.
"In the past couple of days, my office has been flooded with calls from people," Secretary Hobbs said. She added that there are people, "who are very concerned that the mail will be an appropriate way to send their ballot back and their vote won't be counted."
Despite rhetoric from the President, The Arizona Republican Party endorses voting by mail. Executive Director Greg Safsten said, "Arizona has been conducting mail-in voting for more than two decades, and our state has developed a system that is safe and secure for every voter."
Safsten says the President opposes states who want to create a vote by mail system in the weeks leading up to the election, calling it potential targets for fraud.
"We're in really good shape," Adrian Fontes says of Arizona and its counties about how prepared they are for the 2020 Presidential election.
"As long as we give our voters the info they need, I trust Maricopa and Arizona voters to do the right thing and get the ballots in as soon as they can."
Truth be told, when Arizona voters receive their ballots by mail, they will be instructed to mail them back by October 28. That is a day later than the Postal Service recommends. Fontes believes that won't be a problem in Maricopa County, but he, along with the state's other County Recorders, are urging voters to mail back their ballots by October 27.
