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Candidate order on Arizona ballots varies by county
/news/2026/09/15/candidate-order-on-arizona-ballots-varies-by-county/
Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:01:05 +0000
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Wondering why Democrats are listed first on your ballot? Or perhaps Republicans?
The post Candidate order on Arizona ballots varies by county first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
PHOENIX — Wondering why Democrats are listed first on your ballot? Or perhaps Republicans?
It’s not a conspiracy or even political intrigue. Instead, it depends on where you live. Lawmakers set it up that way.
But questions remain about whether Arizona’s ballot-order system is fair — and whether those listed first have a small but potentially significant advantage.
And, as both federal court litigation and state legislation have shown, what people believe about the existence of a statistical difference is linked to whether they think the current system helps or hurts them and their party.
Under the state Election Code, the order candidates appear on the general election ballot is set based on how well that party’s candidate did in each county in the most recent gubernatorial election.
So ballots this year in Apache, Coconino, Maricopa, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties will list Democrat Katie Hobbs, who won in those counties in 2022, ahead of Republican Andy Biggs. For residents of the other 10 counties, the first name they will see in the gubernatorial race is Biggs because Kari Lake outpolled Hobbs there four years ago.
Everyone else on that ballot gets the same preference.
In Pima County, for example, Democrats running for Congress and the Legislature will also get top billing. Ditto the other four counties where Hobbs beat Lake in 2022, regardless of how well other Democrats on the ballot did that year. Conversely, Republicans in the other 10 counties will get top billing.
Does name placement matter?
Democrats certainly thought so in 2019, when they challenged the system in federal court.
At the time, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s 2018 victory over Democrat David Garcia meant that Republicans would be listed first in 11 of the state’s 15 counties in the 2020 and 2022 elections. That included Maricopa County, the state’s largest.
National Democratic groups argued that being listed first gives candidates an advantage and asked U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to replace the state’s system with one that randomly rotates the ballot order.
They cited research showing that voters tend to choose the candidate listed first in a race, also known as the “primacy effect.”
John Krosnick, a Stanford University professor, testified that the concept of “order effects” is not unique to ballots. He said this is because people take in information in a certain order.
Consider a menu.
“We typically start reading at the top of the menu and move down,” he told the judge. “When we encounter objects, usually there is a tendency to lean to the first thing we see.”’
This also shows up in polling, Krosnick said. If people are asked to rank the importance of issues like education, crime, and the environment, they tend to rank the first one they hear as the most important. Krosnick said that’s why pollsters routinely rotate the order of options when asking such questions.
Mary O’Grady, the attorney for Hobbs when she was secretary of state at the time, countered with testimony from Sean Trende, the senior elections analyst for Real Clear Politics. He questioned the reliability of studies showing any correlation between ballot order and voter choices.
In the end, though, Humetewa dismissed the case because the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit could not show they had legal standing or had been injured.
As it turned out, Democrats did fairly well in the 2020 race.
Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential race. Mark Kelly ousted McSally — she had been appointed by Ducey to fill out the term of John McCain after his death — from the U.S. Senate. Democrats also won five of the nine congressional seats.
And in 2022 Hobbs beat Lake for governor, and Democrats elected Ruben Gallego to the U.S. Senate and took the races for secretary of state and attorney general.
Republicans reconsider name placement law
Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Scottsdale Republican, concluded last year that Democrats were right to claim it’s not fair to have ballot order determined by who won the last governor’s race.
So he introduced legislation requiring general election ballots to be crafted so that, from precinct to precinct, the order of which party goes first rotates. That would have meant that each party gets an equal chance to be in that first position — essentially what Democrats asked for ahead of the 2020 election.
He convinced colleagues in the House to adopt the rotation plan. But the plan failed when two Republican senators joined with all the Democrats to kill it.
Kolodin, now running for secretary of state, said he remains convinced the current ballot order system needs to be replaced.
“No political party should enjoy an advantage over another merely because of how a ballot is designed,” he said, adding that it “ensures fairness for all Arizonans, regardless of party.”
All this becomes relevant again with the November general election.
In counties where Biggs defeats Hobbs, Republicans will have top billing in the 2028 and 2030 elections. In the counties she wins, Democrats will have top billing in each race for the next two elections.The post Candidate order on Arizona ballots varies by county first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
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GOP lawmaker seems to agree with Dems about top billing on ballots
/news/2025/01/08/gop-lawmaker-seems-to-agree-with-dems-about-top-billing-on-ballots/
Wed, 08 Jan 2025 21:32:50 +0000
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A Scottsdale Republican lawmaker has concluded that Democrats were ...
The post GOP lawmaker seems to agree with Dems about top billing on ballots first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
A Scottsdale Republican lawmaker has concluded that Democrats were right all along – it’s not fair to have ballot order determined by who won the last governor’s race.
But Rep. Alexander Kolodin said the fact that there’s now a Democrat in the top office – and that prior GOP advantage has disappeared – has at least something to do with his legislation to alter the system.
His HB2045 would require that the order of candidates for each race on the general election ballot be rotated among voting precincts in each county so that each party gets an equal chance of being in that first position.
The current system – the one based on who won the last governor’s race – meant that in the 2022 election Republicans were listed ahead of Democrats in all races in 11 of the state’s 15 counties where Doug Ducey outpolled Democrat David Garcia. That included Maricopa County, which has more voters than the other 14 counties combined.
The Democratic National Committee and its allies thought that system is so unfair that they filed suit in 2019 asking a federal judge to rule the system illegal.
To back their arguments, they cited research from a political science professor who estimated that first-listed candidates get an average advantage of 2.2 percentage points. And the margin, according to Jonathan Rodden, can reach 5.6 percentage points.
All that, argued attorney Sarah Gonski, explains why Arizona law requires rotation of names on primary election ballots. And she urged U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa to extend that rotation to general elections.
The judge refused. And the Democrats had no better luck going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, however, Kolodin says they have a point.
“It provides a statistical advantage to the group of candidates listed first,” he said – exactly what the Democrats were arguing in court.
So what’s changed?
One thing is that Democrat Katie Hobbs beat Republican Kari Lake in the 2022 gubernatorial race. And that meant Democrats got top billing in the just-completed election in five counties, including Maricopa and Pima, where three out of every four registered voters reside.
That would be repealed if the Republican-controlled Legislature approves his plan and the governor signs it, replaced by the system of random rotation.
But Kolodin also conceded there is some politics behind his move to have the Legislature revamp the law versus having it decided by a federal judge.
“The Democrats were suing to try to change the law to suit their purposes,” he said. But Kolodin said Humetewa was right in concluding it was not the role of the courts to make such decisions.
Instead, he said, that’s the role of the Legislature which then – and now – has been controlled by Republicans.
“The Legislature saw fit to, fairly in my view, provide that advantage to the party that had won the Governor’s Office,” he said of the law in place when Ducey had won his races for governor.
Put another way, Kolodin said, Republican lawmakers had every right to set up a system that was designed to benefit their candidates.
“It’s not fair to take that advantage away from a political party in the middle of a gubernatorial term,” he said, saying the GOP, having won 11 counties in 2018, including Maricopa, was entitled to “get the prize” of first position in future elections.
“And you get to keep that prize for the four years,” Kolodin said.
Anyway, he said, it’s not like he’s trying to take away the current Democratic advantage – at least not right away.
“It doesn’t take effect until 2027,” Kolodin he said.
What that means, he said, is that even if his measure becomes law the Democratic candidates still will be listed first in the five affected counties for the upcoming election. That’s the one in which Hobbs herself will seek a new term.
But it will make irrelevant beyond that, at least for ballot order, whether she wins or loses.
The post GOP lawmaker seems to agree with Dems about top billing on ballots first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
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Previous gubernatorial race winner in county determines ballot order, but should it?
/news/2024/10/14/previous-gubernatorial-race-winner-in-county-determines-ballot-order-but-should-it/
Mon, 14 Oct 2024 22:49:08 +0000
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Wondering why Kamala Harris is listed ahead of Donald Trump on your ballot? Or vice versa? Or Ruben Gallego versus Kari Lake? It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the law. And […]
The post Previous gubernatorial race winner in county determines ballot order, but should it? first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
Wondering why Kamala Harris is listed ahead of Donald Trump on your ballot? Or vice versa?
Or Ruben Gallego versus Kari Lake?
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the law. And it depends on where you live.
And it comes despite the fact that some people claim there’s actually evidence that whichever candidate whose name is first may have a marginal advantage.
What it all comes down to is who won the last gubernatorial race in your county. A 1979 Arizona law says that determines ballot order for the next two statewide elections.
In 2022, Katie Hobbs outpolled Kari Lake in Coconino, Maricopa, Pima, Santa Cruz and Yuma counties. So, every partisan race on this year’s ballot, from president on down through legislators to the county treasurer, lists the Democratic contender first.
And it’s just the reverse in the other nine counties, places where Lake did better than Hobbs, even though the GOP nominee ultimately lost the race statewide by 17,117 votes.
Is it fair?
The Democrats didn’t think so four years ago – just ahead of the 2020 election – when they noticed that Republicans were set to be listed ahead of Democrats in all races in 11 of the state’s 15 counties, including Maricopa County which has more voters than the other 14 combined. That was because Republican Doug Ducey beat Democrat David Garcia in 2018.
So they filed suit in federal court.
“For the past 40 years, the result has been the systemic favoritism of Republicans on the vast majority of general election ballots,” argued Sarah Gonski on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.
And she said it does make a difference.
“It is now well established that the candidate whose name appears first on a ballot in a contested race receives an electoral benefit (ITALICS) solely (ROMAN) due to her first position,” Gonsky told U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa, who was appointed by then-President Barack Obama. “Politicians and parties long strongly suspected as much, but this particular piece of political mythology has been confirmed by academics again and again, persuasively and, in recent years, definitively.”
Gonski’s proof?
She cited data from Jonathan Rodden, a political science professor at Stanford University. He estimated the first-listed candidates get an average advantage of 2.2 percentage points.
And that advantage, Rodden said, could reach 5.6 percentage points.
None of that swayed Humetewa. The problem, the judge said, starts with the legal ability of the challengers to raise the issue.
She said anyone seeking federal court intervention must demonstrate “a personal stake in the outcome.” And that, the judge said, means showing that they would be injured “in a personal and individual way.”
That, she said, isn’t the case here.
“The harm that plaintiffs allege is not harm to themselves, but rather an alleged harm to the Democratic candidates whom they intend, at this juncture, to support,” Humetewa wrote. And she said that a candidate’s failure to get elected does not injure those who voted for that person.
Nor, the judge said, can they show other harms due to the ballot-order law.
“They do not order that the ballot order statute prevents them from casting a ballot for their intended candidate, nor do they argue that their lawfully cast votes will not be counted,” she said. And she brushed aside any arguments that some people were having their votes for the candidates diluted because others were simply picking the first name they saw.
“Plaintiffs will not be injured simply because other voters may act ‘irrationally’ in the ballot box by exercising their right to choose the first-listed candidate,” Humetewa wrote.
She also took a slap of sorts at the Democrats for their proposed solution: rotating the position of names on the general election ballot – but only between the Democrats and Republicans.
“Their definition of ‘fairness’ does not require rotation of independent party candidates, write-in candidates from the primary election, or other third-party candidates in their ballot scheme, meaning that those candidates would never be listed first on the ballot,” the judge said.
And there was something else. Humetewa said in her 2020 ruling there was no actual proof that the system actually frustrated the ability of Democrats to get elected to statewide office. Exhibit No. 1, she said, was the 2018 election of Kyrsten Sinema – then a Democrat – to the U.S. Senate over Republican Martha McSally.
As it turned out, more recent history has backed Humetewa’s conclusion that the law is not discriminatory and is not a handicap for Democratic candidates.
In the 2022 election Democratic candidates managed to win races not only for governor but also secretary of state and attorney general.
And there has been no further effort by the Democrats since then to overturn the system.The post Previous gubernatorial race winner in county determines ballot order, but should it? first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
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Judge’s math to decide if voters get say on nonpartisan primaries initiative
/news/2024/09/18/judges-math-to-decide-if-voters-get-say-on-nonpartisan-primaries-initiative/
Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:23:13 +0000
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PHOENIX – The question of whether voters get to decide to create a system of nonpartisan primaries could turn on math and whether it’s really too late to do anything […]
The post Judge’s math to decide if voters get say on nonpartisan primaries initiative first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
PHOENIX – The question of whether voters get to decide to create a system of nonpartisan primaries could turn on math and whether it’s really too late to do anything about it since it is already on the ballots that start going out this week.
In a day-long hearing Wednesday, both supporters and foes of Proposition 140 agreed that at least 383,923 signatures on petitions turned in need to be determined valid. That is based on a requirement that proposed constitutional amendments, as this would be, need to have signatures equal to 15% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial race.
There also are arguments that the Make Elections Fair committee failed to turn in at least 383,923 valid signatures on petitions to put Proposition 140 on the ballot. That is based on signatures and petitions disqualified by the Secretary of State’s Office, a review of a random sample of what was left by county recorders, and a finding by a special master appointed by the court which says more than 37,000 signatures on petitions are duplicates, signed by the same person.
Attorney Daniel Arellano, who represents the challengers, told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz, appointed by then Gov. Jan Brewer, there just aren’t enough signatures left.
But Michael O’Neil, a statistical scientist, said that the method used to do that computation – and get to the number that foes say falls short of the 383,923 – is flawed because it effectively double counts invalid signatures.
What makes that important, according to Travis Hunt, the lawyer for Proposition 140 supporters, is that double counting some disqualified signatures created a mathematical threshold which would require his clients to actually get the equivalent of 15.2% of the number who voted in the 2022 gubernatorial race. And that, he said, illegally overrides what is required.
Hunt now wants Moskowitz to rule that, when staying true to what he says is the constitutional standard, there really are enough signatures.
But foes of the initiative countered by bringing their own math expert to court.
Economist Constantijn Panis said he did not disagree with O’Neil’s math. But he said that doesn’t matter as the 383,923 number remains constant.
And, if nothing else, Arellano said a prior Supreme Court ruling upholds that double counting.
All that leaves it to Moskowitz to decide, as he was directed by the Arizona Supreme Court, to rule on whether he believes there are enough valid signatures to allow voters to have the final say.
Proposition 140 would scrap the current system where each party chooses its nominees for partisan federal, state and local offices. Instead, there would be a wide open primary, open to all candidates regardless of political affiliation, with all registered voters allowed to make their choices.
It also would create the option for lawmakers to have just the top two vote-getters advance to the general election or to allow up to five candidates to be on the ballot. And in that case, it would require the use of a system where voters rank their choices by preference, with the potential of multiple rounds of ballot counting until someone gets at least 50%.
Supporters submitted about 575,000 signatures to put the issue on the ballot. But a check of a random sample determined that only 409,474 are valid.
But Moskowitz assigned retired Judge Christoper Skelly to look at challengers’ complaints about duplicate signatures. And he concluded 37,657 of the names were duplicates, a finding that, if Moskowitz adopts, would leave the initiative backers short of what they need.
That’s what makes the argument about double counting of invalid signatures significant: A ruling that it improperly raises the burden on supporters beyond the 15% threshold would leave Prop 140 with enough signatures to go to voters.
The issue facing Moskowitz, however is even more complex, especially if he sides with foes and concludes there aren’t enough signatures. And that’s based on the fact that the ballots already have been printed, the deadline was weeks ago, with Prop 140 on them.
In that case, Arellano wants a court order directing state and county election officials to simply not tally the votes for or against the measure. But Hunt contends that, even if the signature count falls short, there is no legal authority for Moskowitz – or even the Supreme Court – to issue such an order at this late date.
He is not alone.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, in a brief to the Arizona Supreme Court, said once those ballots were printed – and the first ones go out at the end of the week – time simply ran out for foes to disqualify it, regardless of whether there are enough signatures or not.
“No provision in the Arizona Constitution permits a measure to go to the ballot and allow millions of voters to vote on it, only for those votes to be invalidated,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Kara Karlson on his behalf. “Neither is there a provision of the Arizona Constitution, nor state law, which would allow the secretary not to canvass a contest on the ballot.”
Initiative foes, however, take the position that the printing of the ballots – and even having them returned with votes for and against it – does not invalidate their challenge.
“Voters are not disenfranchised by not having their votes counted for a measure that we never eligible in the first place,” Arellano wrote in legal filings. He said allowing the printing of the ballots to bring pending election challenges to a halt would provide a “perverse incentive” for initiative supports to delay a final ruling “in hopes of running out the clock.”
Moskowitz did not say when he will rule. And any decision is likely to be appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court.The post Judge’s math to decide if voters get say on nonpartisan primaries initiative first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
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Arizona Supreme Court asked to address nearly 100,000 voters made ineligible by 2005 law
/news/2024/09/17/arizona-supreme-court-asked-to-address-nearly-100000-voters-made-ineligible-by-new-law/
Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:26:52 +0000
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PHOENIX – The Arizona Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether close to 100,000 registered voters can cast a ballot in upcoming state and local elections. A pair of […]
The post Arizona Supreme Court asked to address nearly 100,000 voters made ineligible by 2005 law first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
PHOENIX – The Arizona Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether close to 100,000 registered voters can cast a ballot in upcoming state and local elections.
A pair of lawsuits being filed today ask the justices to decide how the state and counties must deal with the fact that there is no evidence that close to 2.5% of all voters have not provided the legally required “documented proof of citizenship.” That makes them legally ineligible to vote a full ballot under the terms of a law that took effect Jan. 24, 2005.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer wants the court to declare that the affected individuals will be able to vote only in federal races. That’s because federal law has no such proof-of-citizenship requirement to cast a ballot for president, Senate or House.
But Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is filing his own legal papers, saying there is no reason to believe that virtually all of these people – many of whom have been voting for years – are not actually citizens, even if the paperwork is missing. He said all have signed forms swearing, under penalty of perjury, that they are eligible to cast a ballot.
There’s also the chaos it would cause so close to the election.
Both Richer and Fontes describe their litigation as “friendly,” designed to get a clear decision from the Supreme Court – perhaps by the end of the week.
Speed is crucial.
Overseas ballots are supposed to go out by Friday. And early ballots will be mailed in less than a month.
What’s behind the last-minute scramble is that a check of records by Richer’s office found that someone who was presumed registered to vote in all elections had never provided the legally required “documented proof of citizenship.” And that, he said, means that person had not complied with that 2005 law.
Fontes said that discovery led his own agency to take a closer look at others in the voter rolls. And what his staff found, he said, was something close to 98,000 who are in the same situation.
The secretary of state stressed stressed this wasn’t intentional, saying many of these people have been voting for years – and their ballots have been accepted – under the premise they were in compliance with the law.
Still, it is likely to rekindle complaints by some who insist that the state’s election rolls are packed with people who are ineligible. That includes a federal court lawsuit by a conservative group which is accusing all 15 county recorders of failing to do their jobs to ensure that only citizens are voting.
It starts with that 2005 law which imposed the state’s first-ever requirement for proof of citizenship to register, a requirement that exists nowhere else in the country.
But that law also says anyone registering from that point forward who already had a driver’s license issued after Oct, 1, 1996 is presumed to be legally registered. That’s the effective date of a law signed by then-Gov. Jan Brewer that individuals needed to prove legal presence to get a license.
And the same law essentially grandfathered in as presumed to be a citizen anyone whose license is older than that, all without having to provide new citizenship proof.
The problem involves those who registered to vote after that 2005 effective date but whose driver licenses predate 1996.
As new registrants, they expect to provide documentary proof of citizenship, regardless of the age of their license. Ditto those who move to another county and reregister to vote there.
That, said Fontes, normally triggers a check of MVD records.
Richer said the problem is that some people who had pre-1996 licenses – the ones without proof of citizenship – have gone to MVD for a duplicate license or to change their address.
The agency, however, used this new issue date indicating the person actually had a post-1996 license – meaning they had provided proof of citizenship – when, in fact, they never had. And county election officials, relying on those MVD records when facing someone trying to register to vote after 2004, never asked for any citizenship proof.
“This data coding oversight resulted in an inaccurate belief that certain people had provided documentary proof of citizenship to the MVD,” according to Fontes’ office.
It only came to light earlier this month.
Maricopa County was checking the citizenship of one person who had one of those older licenses who was updating voter registration. It turned out that this person was a lawfully permanent resident – entitled to an Arizona license under the 1996 law – but not a citizen, with the issue being that MVD coding.
Fontes said despite the registration, that person never cast a ballot.
Now aware of the problem, Fontes said further checks were made across the system. And he believes there are about 98,000 whose records reflect the lack of submission of documentary proof of citizenship.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that anyone in this gap is not an eligible voter,” Fontes said.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that they’re not eligible citizens in spite of the fact that we did find one,” he continued. “All we know is they fit into this category and all of this requires more research.”
But with time running out, the plan was hatched to have Maricopa County ask the Supreme Court for an order spelling out that anyone in this category could cast a federal-only ballot. That is based on that federal law saying people can vote in federal elections without proof of citizenship.
Then, the Secretary of State’s Office would be ready with a response asking the justices to allow those affected to vote in all elections, as they have been doing until now.
“I think that they should,” said Fontes. “Each of these individuals have sworn an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that they are United States citizens.”
In fact, Fontes said, that is sufficient in the other 49 states to register to vote. Only Arizona requires would-be registrants to provide documentary proof.
But the real goal is to get a definitive decision – which the state Supreme Court should be able to provide – as soon as possible. Fontes said since this is strictly an interpretation of state law, there is no reason for federal court involvement.
He said if the justices conclude that these people are entitled to vote only in federal races there will be an outreach effort to let them know – and not just that they will get a ballot without state and local races, either when early ballots go out or when they show up at the polls.
Fontes said there’s actually another option for those who want to cast a full ballot. He said they can provide proof of citizenship to county officials, the same proof now required of new registrants, right up through 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Not everyone with a pre-1996 license falls into this questionable category, even if they haven’t changed their voter registration.
Fontes said many people have applied for a Real ID. That is an enhanced driver’s license that, among other things, will be required next year to board a commercial aircraft.
And, in getting a Real ID, an applicant had to provide proof of citizenship like a passport, meaning they are, and remain, eligible to vote in all elections.
Fontes also said none of this has any legal effect on prior elections, even if it turns out that someone without the required proof of citizenship voted on a statewide race. He said courts presume that there has to be finality to elections.
Of those affected, Fontes said it appears they are spread out among all the counties in about the same percentages as the number of registered voters.
So, for example, of the slightly more than 4.1 million registered voters, he would expect about 59% of them to be from Maricopa County, 15% from Pima County, close to 6.5% from Pinal County, about 4.1% from Yavapai County and the remainder in proportion to the remaining counties.
Fontes said it also appears that there are more Republicans on the list than Democrats or independents, also largely a function of total registration.
Gov. Katie Hobbs, in a prepared statement, said she identified and fixed what she called an “administrative error” dating back to 2004.
“As soon as I became aware of the problem, I directed MVD to aggressively develop and implement a solution,” she said. Hobbs also said that she “will be implementing an independent audit to ensure that MVD systems are functioning as necessary to support voter registration.”
All of this is occurring as some Republicans on the state and national level, without citing proof, contend that people who are not citizens are affecting federal elections. They are pushing for a national law to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.The post Arizona Supreme Court asked to address nearly 100,000 voters made ineligible by 2005 law first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
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How Arizona tackles a language barrier to provide Navajo voters a ballot they can listen to
/news/2024/09/17/how-arizona-tackles-a-language-barrier-to-provide-navajo-voters-a-ballot-they-can-listen-to/
Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:31:28 +0000
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This story was originally published by Votebeat in partnership with ICT. Votebeat is a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free […]
The post How Arizona tackles a language barrier to provide Navajo voters a ballot they can listen to first appeared on Arizona Capitol Times.]]>
This story was originally published by Votebeat in partnership with ICT. Votebeat is a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.
The group of Navajo speakers gathered in Flagstaff were deep into translating the pages stacked in front of them when they began deliberating over how to best describe fentanyl.
It wouldn’t be a straight translation — almost nothing is, from English to Navajo. But these county and state election officials, charged with translating Arizona’s long and complex ballot for a key group of voters on the Navajo Nation, would try their best to get it right.
“Not azee’,” someone said. “Azee’ is medicine. It’s to heal.”
They looked down at the English text: “Criminalizes selling fentanyl that causes the death of a person.”
Azee’, they decided, gave the wrong impression. The group would need new wording, and quickly.
This was just a single sentence, a small piece of just one of the 13 propositions set to appear on Arizona’s November ballot. By the end of the day, the group had to finish translating all of them into Navajo. Because Navajo is a historically oral language and many who speak it cannot read it, the goal was to come up with a translation that voters who are not proficient in English could listen to at the polls.
Several of the proposals on the ballot are hotly contested, from abortion rights to open primary elections. While the English language used to describe those propositions has been the subject of debate in the press, public, and courts, the translations into Navajo and other languages receive little attention or public scrutiny, even though they are covered by federal law.
Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act requires places around the country to translate election information into specific languages if they have significant numbers of residents who share a common language and don’t understand English well, or if they meet other criteria. It’s a challenge to do these translations, and do them correctly, especially for counties such as those in Arizona that must translate historically oral languages.
Over the years, courts in Arizona and elsewhere in the country have found that election officials haven’t done enough for such voters and have ordered them to do more.
Multiple Arizona counties fall under the law, including seven counties subject to Native language requirements. Some counties are required to translate into multiple Native languages, including Navajo, Hopi, and Apache. Some exceptions have been granted to counties for Paiute and Pueblo translation requirements, officials said.
The translation work in Arizona this year largely took place in private meetings, such as the Navajo gathering, held over two days at the Coconino County Elections Center.
The public’s view into the translation process is limited. A Votebeat reporter accompanied by a videographer obtained advance permission from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office to sit in on the second day of the Navajo meeting, and were allowed to watch, after briefly being barred from attending.
The meeting provided a window into the complexity of the process, as well as the limits of Arizona’s efforts to make elections fully accessible to Navajo speakers.
Navajo vote is pivotal in Arizona
Navajo-speaking voters are a closely watched group. High turnout from the Navajo Nation — which sweeps across the entire northeast portion of Arizona before stretching into Utah, Colorado and New Mexico — has heavily influenced the outcome of some statewide elections. In 2020, Indigenous voters were a critical voting bloc that helped decide the presidential election in favor of Joe Biden in this swing state, and their choices could determine the fate of high-profile ballot measures this year.
Around 71,000 Arizonans of voting age speak Navajo, and about 1 in 10 of them aren’t fluent in English, according to a Votebeat analysis of 2022 U.S. Census estimates.
Navajo voters who don’t speak English well may get less information this election than voters who do. A 2019 settlement agreement between the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and the Navajo Nation requires the office to use certified Navajo translators to “coordinate and make available” a translation of all text describing each proposition that is included within each election’s publicity pamphlet, an English-language guide the secretary of state sends to all voters before each election.
The full text in that guide includes not only the text of the ballot measure as it appears on the ballot — which has to be very short, under state law — but also a full separate description of what a “yes” or “no” vote on the measure would mean. Those yes/no descriptions are also provided to voters in their mail ballot packet, or as a handout at the polls.
But attendees at the Navajo translation meeting discussed only the proposition text on the ballot, not the additional yes/no descriptions. Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson JP Martin said the counties were provided a translation of the yes/no section. It’s unclear whether voters will be provided with a uniform translation in the form of an audio recording.
Asked why the Navajo meetings were closed to the public, Martin wrote in an emailed response that it “minimized disruptions and allow interpreters to focus on their work.”
Leonard Gorman, the executive director of the Office of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, who is Diné, the word used by Navajo people to describe themselves, said he has repeatedly found problems with the state translations over the years. He wasn’t permitted to attend the Navajo translation meetings.
Navajo-speaking voters “will not understand what they are voting for” if the translation is flawed, Gorman said. “That is not what Section 203 is about.”
The Navajo Nation Office of the President did not receive an invitation to the meeting, either, according to George Hardeen, a spokesperson.
Sensitivity over abortion complicates translation work
This year, the Arizona’s Secretary of State’s Office hired translators and helped develop uniform ballot translations for Spanish, Navajo, and Hopi, but not for Apache. The three counties that must translate into Apache will handle the requirement on their own.
The Navajo translation is supposed to be used to train bilingual poll workers on the reservation. An audio recording of the final translation is also available on the accessible voting device at each polling location, so voters can listen to it if they choose.
The careful conversations and sensitivity to language throughout the Navajo translation meeting hinted at the complications inherent in translating from English to Navajo. Translating one English word often requires creating a multi-word Navajo phrase that aims to capture its meaning. There are typically multiple ways to translate something, especially terms commonly used in elections.
The culturally sensitive topics on the ballot this year made agreeing on the proper Navajo translation even more complex, according to some of the county officials who participated.
Take Proposition 139, which would guarantee abortion rights for Arizona residents. Navajo culture traditionally does not approve of abortions, said Melvatha Chee, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of New Mexico and director of its Navajo language program.
Some interpreters will intentionally soften language on topics such as abortion when translating into Navajo, in an effort to avoid offending anyone, Chee said. Chee, who is Diné and has helped translate ballots for New Mexico but wasn’t part of the Arizona discussions, said that could mislead voters about what the proposed change to state law would do.
Chee listened to a recording provided by Votebeat of the draft form of the Navajo translation of the abortion proposition discussed at the meeting. In it, the word “abortion,” which doesn’t have a direct counterpart in Navajo, was translated to awéé’ t’óó átsą́ haal’eełjí.
Chee said she was concerned Navajo voters could believe the phrase referred to a miscarriage rather than an abortion.
“So this word, átsą́ haal’eełjí, is flushed out of the belly, like it flowed out like liquid. That is what that means. And that describes a miscarriage,” Chee said. “That is not an abortion. An abortion is, someone goes in there, and they remove a fetus. So, right away, you can tell that cultural sensitivity, that cultural aspect of that, is already showing up in the first four words of this translation.”
She said changing the verb construction would better convey the idea that a deliberate action was causing the fetus to come out.
She said that she frequently hears from Navajo interpreters that they don’t want to use certain language.
Karen Shupla, who is Hopi and is the Coconino County Recorder’s Office Hopi translator, said her own personal view on abortion meant she had a “mental block” as she tried to participate in the Navajo translation meeting, and she had to set aside her own feelings.
“I had to be open,” she said. “I can’t be personal on these propositions.”
Isaura Nez, Navajo County’s voter outreach coordinator, who is Diné, said there were also sensitive questions when translating Proposition 313, which would change the punishment for child sex trafficking. She said she didn’t believe the description of sex trafficking should use the word for rape.
“We had to go back and revisit that one,” she said. “We went round and round with it, because saying rape was a lot harsher, I thought.”
Translation gaps persist despite legal settlements
County officials came to the meeting with a Navajo language elections glossary and dozens of pages of handwritten notes, and debated extensively even over words as anodyne as “border” or “economic opportunity.”
After the meeting, Shupla stressed how important it was to get the translation exactly right. But despite the group’s diligence, there’s no guarantee that voters and their advocates will be satisfied with the outcome.
Since at least 2016, Gorman, of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, has been monitoring the language assistance offered to Navajo voters. In all those years, he said, he has not issued a positive report.
In 2018, just after the November midterm election, the Navajo Nation filed a sweeping lawsuit against the state and Apache, Coconino, and Navajo counties, claiming, among other things, that the counties did not provide sufficient Navajo translation resources.
The counties and state settled the case, each signing separate agreements with the Navajo Nation. Navajo County agreed to continue providing translators at each polling place on the Navajo Nation, to make sure at least one person is available to translate at early voting sites, and to continue to provide an interpreter’s guide. The county also must use a trained translator or interpreter to train poll workers on providing effective language assistance to Navajo-speaking voters.
The Secretary of State’s Office believes those agreements have led to improved oral translation services at voting sites. The agreements have “guided more structured and proactive approaches, ensuring compliance and addressing potential issues before they arise,” Martin told Votebeat.
The state’s settlement in the case requires a Navajo translation of the full proposition language in the pamphlet, including the text of the ballot measures as they appear on the ballot, as well as the yes/no language.
During the August meeting, Nez from Navajo County and Shupla from Coconino County both told Colleen Connor, policy director in the Secretary of State’s Office, that they were concerned that they weren’t discussing the translation for the yes/no language, which they said contained important details. That part will be handed to voters at the polls in English.
Shupla told Connor that just providing the ballot translation, without the yes/no section “could be misleading,” and she worried the counties would get backlash from voters. “I can hear one person already saying, ‘Why didn’t you provide us the full information? You misled us,’” Shupla said.
Connor, who attended the meeting via video, responded to their concerns by saying that she agreed that the separate language provides a better explanation of all components of the ballot measure, but did not explain why they were not discussing the translation.
Coconino County Recorder Patty Hansen said in an email after the meeting that the county’s staff will “make sure that the interpreters are trained so that the voter will understand what the question is and what a yes and no vote means.
“It may not be done in the same manner as what is on the English language ballot,” she added.
Allison Neswood, a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund who litigates Section 203 violations, said she believes that, for historically unwritten languages such as Navajo, the law requires election officials to orally translate into Navajo any election material available in English.
Neswood said that if Arizona wants to allow for “meaningful participation” — the standard set in the federal law — it should be translating the full pamphlet. She said an exception in the law that election officials do not have to offer a written translation for historically unwritten languages has allowed counties “to get out of the full scope of the program.”
Neswood pointed to a 2013 case in Alaska, where the Native American Rights Fund represented Alaska Native groups and residents in a lawsuit claiming the state wasn’t honoring an agreement to translate election information into Alaska Native languages.
In that case, Neswood said, the plaintiffs pointed out how English voters were offered a pamphlet more than 100 pages long explaining the candidates and ballot initiatives, while speakers of Alaska Native languages received just one page stating where and when to vote.
“The judge looked at that and said this is completely wrong,” she said. The judge then ordered that the state translate the entire pamphlet, and all other election material offered in English.
Asked to respond to the idea that Arizona should be translating more materials, Martin, the Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson, said the state is committed to seeing that all voters covered by Section 203 receive the assistance they deserve.
“When feasible and beneficial for the community, written translations of voter education and informational materials are also made available,” he wrote.
How could language assistance improve?
Gorman, from the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, said in an interview that the settlement agreements have not led to improved language assistance for Navajo voters.
After the November 2022 election, he sharply criticized the translation provided at the polls, in an email that was forwarded to the Secretary of State’s Office. In the email, which Votebeat obtained through a public records request, Gorman said he had trouble understanding the translation, even though he is proficient in both Navajo and English.
That was particularly the case when he tried listening to the audio recording on the device at his polling place, he wrote. For example, he wrote, the instructions explaining how many candidates a voter can choose from were translated in Navajo as something like “there are two,” with no further context.
Not many voters actually rely on that recording, according to county officials and Native voting advocates. Nez, in Navajo County, said it takes a long time to listen to the whole thing. She predicts that will especially be true this November, since the ballot is unusually long.
Older Navajo voters, typically referred to as elders, are more likely to need help at the polls, Nez said. Many of them bring family to the polls to help them, she said, or call on the translators.
That reinforces findings in the U.S. Census data, which shows that nearly all of the Navajo speakers in the state who don’t speak any English are over the age of 65.
“A lot of them are going to say, ‘I don’t want to do this, whatever, just vote ‘no,’ or just vote ‘yes,’” Nez said.
Neswood said she believes a close look at how counties around the country are providing language assistance would show that most of them are not meeting federal law, “especially in the Native language context,” though she acknowledged that doing so is challenging.
She said she believes Congress needs