Highlights
- At least 50,000 mail ballots went undelivered statewide in Arizona's July 21, 2026, primary, based on data from 11 of 15 counties.
- Navajo County's 3.9% undeliverable rate drew national attention, but the Arizona Attorney General's Office said the figure is in line with historical rates.
- The U.S. Postal Service found valid return reasons for nine of 10 sampled Navajo County ballots; 66% of a larger 200-ballot sample involved change-of-address orders.
- Navajo County officials plan voter-roll cleanup and expanded outreach before November to reduce future undeliverable ballots.
At least 50,000 mail ballots went undelivered during Arizona's July 21, 2026, primary election, according to data Votebeat gathered from 11 of the state's 15 counties. The figure is roughly in line with prior major elections: about 71,000 mail ballots went undelivered statewide during the 2024 general election, per U.S. Election Assistance Commission data covering all 15 counties.
The story drew outsized attention because of Navajo County, a rural county in northeastern Arizona where Recorder David Marshall flagged the problem publicly on July 14. "We have received over 900 returned ballots — over 900," Marshall said at a public meeting. "Why? Don't know." The county's total eventually rose to 1,377 undelivered ballots, or about 3.9% of ballots mailed out, compared with a 2.3% rate across the other 10 counties where Votebeat collected data.
But that rate is not historically unusual for Arizona. EAC data shows La Paz County saw 4.4% of its mail ballots returned as undeliverable in the 2024 general election. In 2022, Coconino and Pinal counties recorded rates of about 5.5% and 3.8%, respectively. Statewide, the undeliverable rate reached 4.7% in the 2016 general election.
Why did officials initially raise alarms?
Slowdowns in mail processing and national rhetoric against mail voting put voters and election advocates on edge heading into the primary. Arizona is a state where the vast majority of voters cast ballots by mail, and state lawmakers had already moved the primary date from Aug. 4 to July 21, which some county recorders said may have contributed to a slightly higher number of ballots returned with postal codes indicating recipients were temporarily away.
The Postal Service reviewed a sample of Navajo County's undeliverable ballots and found that nine of 10 had a valid reason for being returned. A larger review of 200 ballot envelopes found that 66% were returned because the recipient had some type of change-of-address order on file; others were addressed to vacant homes or closed postal boxes.
By Aug. 14, the Arizona Attorney General's Office had concluded its review. "We've spoken to the recorder in Navajo County and they've verified that the rejection rate is in line with historical rejection rates, so we don't believe there's anything nefarious going on there," Richie Taylor of the AG's office told Votebeat.
Navajo County officials said they will clean up voter rolls before November and will send forwarding-eligible notices to voters whose ballots are returned, while also attempting to reach affected voters by email, phone, and text when contact information is available in their voter record.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- azmirror.com retrieved 19/08/2026 20:25
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 19/08/2026 20:25. Every claim traces to a source.
