Pima County's Early Ballots Came Back at the Lowest Rate in 30 Years

Pima County's Early Ballots Came Back at the Lowest Rate in 30 Years

TUCSON — Pima County issued 349,885 early ballots for the July 21 primary. Just 161,016 came back to be counted — a 46% return rate, the lowest for any primary in the three decades of statistics the county Recorder publishes, and the third straight primary in which the rate has fallen. The Board of Supervisors certified the results Monday on an overall turnout of 28.88%.

Why so many ballots go out

Arizona voters can join the Active Early Voting List, and most Pima County voters have. Under A.R.S. § 16-544, signing up once means the Recorder automatically sends a ballot for every election you're eligible to vote in, mailed by the first day of early voting, unless you tell the office at least 45 days ahead that you don't want one. You stay on the list until you ask to come off, your registration goes inactive, or you go two consecutive election cycles without voting an early ballot.

So roughly 350,000 ballots go out whether or not those voters intend to participate. The 188,869 that weren't returned for tabulation this July aren't lost or missing. They're overwhelmingly people on a standing list who declined a summer primary — a number that happens to exceed the 186,600 who voted at all.

The trend

The list has grown 15.8 times since 1996. The share of ballots that come back has gone the other direction.

General elections still bring ballots back — 78% in 2024, 87% in 2020. It's the primaries, where nominations are actually decided, that people increasingly leave on the counter.

A note on the figures: the Recorder's published return rate measures ballots that reached tabulation against ballots sent. It excludes ballots returned undeliverable or unvoted, so the share of voters who touched their ballot at all is somewhat higher. The 2026 numbers here — 349,885 issued, 161,016 received and processed — are the same two measures the Recorder uses for prior years, confirmed against the 2024 official canvass, where the Recorder's reported 173,614 "returned" matches the canvass line "Total Ballots Turned Over for Tabulation" exactly.

The rest of the canvass, by the numbers

459,590 — eligible voters who did not vote: 71% of the electorate, and nearly two and a half times the number who did.

86% — share of all votes cast that arrived as early ballots. Election day is now the exception in Pima County, not the rule.

3 — logic and accuracy tests the voting equipment passed before any ballot was tabulated: in-house on June 12, with both parties participating on June 17, and the Secretary of State's on June 19. All returned 100% accuracy.

6:00 a.m. — when every vote center in the county opened. The elections director's report notes no disruption anywhere that kept a voter from casting a ballot.

16 — ballots counted twice, and the one irregularity the canvass turned up. An operator at the Eckstrom-Columbus Library vote center left 16 ExpressVote ballots in the machine and ran them again with the next site's. A routine audit caught the mismatch, the operator log explained it, and representatives of both parties came in on July 29 to watch staff pull the affected vote center from the system and recount it. That's 0.0086% of ballots cast.

6,025 — early ballots dropped off on election day and processed through the county's new ID Verified Process, in its first use, according to the elections director's report. Five were later found unverified and sent to the Recorder's Office for signature checks.

4,444 — the last page of the canvass document. The precinct-by-precinct Statement of Votes Cast begins on page 210 and runs to the end.

September 8 — when supervisors expect an after-action report from the elections director and the Recorder's Office, in time to change how November is run.