Fiscal Note
BILL # HB 2307 TITLE: elections; hand counting; machines; prohibition
SPONSOR: McGarr STATUS: As Introduced
PREPARED BY: Micaela Larkin
Description
The bill would require that all votes be tabulated by hand in city, town, and county elections. Prohibits a city, town, or
county from using a tabulating machine to count votes.
Estimated Impact
Overall, we estimate that the bill would increase counties' and cities' election expenses due to the change from
automated tabulation to hand counting of ballots. Given the state's standard practice of automated tabulation, we lack
sufficient data on hand counting practices (such as counting time per ballot) to develop a reliable estimate.
In addition, the bill as introduced contemplates conforming legislation to implement the new election requirements. Any
subsequent legislation that enacts implementing details could significantly change the bill's fiscal impact.
The bill's cost is dependent on the number of races to be counted under the description of "city, town, and county
election". This estimate assumes that automated tabulation would continue to be used for federal, state, school district
and special district elections, along with for all judicial candidate/retention elections, and state ballot measures. Our
analysis assumes that hand counting would be used in elections for county and city offices and county/city ballot
measures.
As a caveat, we do not believe that the cost impacts described below can provide a holistic presentation of the fiscal
impact, given that certain variables (as described below) could not be estimated with a reasonable amount of confidence.
Most of the bill's fiscal impact would occur at the local level, since most election costs are paid by the city or county
governments. While the Arizona Association of Counties (AACo) has not attempted to quantify the aggregate cost impact
of the legislation, the organization has suggested the bill's impact would depend on the types of elections covered and the
processes for conducting the hand count.
We have asked the Secretary of State's Office for an estimate of any costs to their agency for this bill. As of publication,
we have not received a response.
Analysis
Given the uncertainty surrounding the bill's fiscal impact, our analysis below attempts to quantify the potential impact for
one single General Election in Maricopa County. This, however, is an incomplete measure of the bill's total fiscal impact as
costs would also be incurred in other counties and also for additional elections (primary elections, and other specific
instances like city runoff elections or recounts).
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Local Government Election Hand Counting Costs
Depending on the year, General Election ballots in Maricopa County typically have a total of 70 to 80 ballot selections
(candidates, judicial retention questions, and ballot measures). Based on a review of these items, in a typical
"presidential" General Election year (where countywide officials are elected), we assume the bill's hand count
requirement would apply to 10 selections for the average voter – this is based on the following selections for the voter: 1
county supervisor, 6 countywide officials (sheriff, recorder, treasurer, assessor, attorney, school superintendent), 1 city
mayor, 1 city council member, and 1 other measure (a city or county ballot measure).
This analysis assumes the following issues are excluded from the hand count requirements: candidates for federal, state,
school district and special district offices, any judicial candidate/retention elections, and any statewide ballot measures.
Based on this data about the number of ballot items, the parameters below are a speculative estimate of the bill's cost for
Maricopa County for one single General Election.
Assuming 10 selections per ballot require a hand count, if each selection takes 15 seconds to review voter intent and
record the vote, this would take 2.5 minutes per ballot [10 selections X 15 seconds each ÷ 60 seconds per minute]. The
official canvass of the 2020 General Election (where countywide officials were elected) indicates there were 2,089,563
ballots cast in Maricopa County. Using this ballot total multiplied by 2.5 minutes per ballot, that would suggest the
resulting process would use approximately 87,065 hours of labor [2.09 million ballots X 2.5 minutes per ballot ÷ 60
minutes per hour]. Using this assumption of 87,065 labor hours X a $25 hourly wage assumption, the manual hand
counting of city/county races during a presidential year General Election in Maricopa County would cost approximately
$2.2 million.
This analysis does not assess the feasibility of finding enough staff/volunteers to generate 87,065 hours of labor during
the ballot counting time period required by election deadlines. Our analysis also does not contemplate the cost of
compiling the individual employee's hand count results and producing them as reportable totals, as we lack sufficient
information on the potential process and any potential error rates in the hand counting process.
Other Potential Fiscal Impacts
As noted above, this analysis assumes the bill's hand counting provisions do not apply to federal, state, school district and
special district offices, any judicial candidate/retention elections, and any statewide ballot measures. Instead, those
elections would be counted using standard automated tabulation methods. Therefore, we estimate the bill's hand
counting provisions will not produce any information technology savings – instead, the automatic methods will continue
to be used for every single ballot, except with programming changes to only count the races eligible for automatic
tabulation.
2/16/23