Highlights

A 2021 Arizona law will begin removing voters from the state's automatic mail ballot list in 2027, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of residents who skipped mail voting across recent election cycles, according to reporting by Sasha Hupka/Votebeat and corroborated by Votebeat and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.

The statute, signed by former Gov. Doug Ducey, requires county recorders to remove voters from the early voting list if they don't cast their mail ballot in federal, state, or certain municipal elections for two consecutive cycles, a four-year period. A voter who didn't mail or drop off their early ballot in 2023, 2024, or 2025 could be at risk of removal if they again don't do so this year, even if they voted in person during that span. Casting a mail ballot this November resets the clock.

A 2022 study from the Brennan Center for Justice estimated that about 340,000 Arizonans could have faced removal if the law were implemented at that time, roughly 12% of voters on the early voting list in 2021. The same study found that nonwhite voters were at higher risk of being removed.

The Arizona Secretary of State's Office has not produced a current count of voters at risk. Spokesperson Calli Jones said the office was working with INEXL Consulting, the developer behind the state's voter registration database, to build coding that would identify impacted voters, but did not expect the project to be complete before the general election.

The law, Senate Bill 1485, introduced by former Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita of Scottsdale, renamed the state's Permanent Early Voting List to the Active Early Voting List. Ducey signed it roughly an hour after the Arizona Senate passed it on a party-line vote, framing it as a matter of election integrity. Democrats called it voter suppression.

Voters removed from the Active Early Voting List are not removed from the rolls entirely. They retain the right to vote and may request to rejoin the list or make individual requests for mail ballots in future elections. Under the law, county officials must send impacted voters a notice on or before Jan. 15, 2027. Voters then have 90 days to confirm in writing, with a signed form including their address and date of birth, that they wish to remain on the list.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said her office was creating plain-language resources about the law to share broadly next year, and that it was the common understanding that every county would send the required notice. She said her office had not yet determined whether it would pursue additional outreach by phone, text, or email.

Kevin Morris of the Brennan Center warned that voters who don't notice the removal could show up at vote centers expecting a mail ballot that never arrives, potentially causing longer lines and materials shortages. "If all of these people suddenly aren't getting the mail that they were expecting, they are going to start showing up at the vote centers," Morris said.

County recorders must send removal notices to impacted voters on or before Jan. 15, 2027; the 90-day response window closes in mid-April.

Sources

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  1. azmirror.com retrieved 27/08/2026 15:52

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 27/08/2026 15:52. Every claim traces to a source.