Arizona judge could throw out a Cochise County election over quirk in state law
A quirk in an Arizona statute governing all-mail elections for local taxing districts could prompt a judge to throw out the results of one such election in a case that could have legal repercussions around the state.
The case calls into question the results of Cochise County’s May 2023 election, in which voters narrowly approved a new tax for a county jail. But without a legislative fix to the way the statute is written, other similar elections could be vulnerable to challenges in the future.
The dispute involves a claim by four residents who sued the county to have the election nullified, arguing that ballots for the jail-tax election should have been sent to the roughly 11,000 inactive voters in the county, among other complaints.
A voter’s status is changed to inactive only if their election mail is returned as undeliverable, or if the recorder gets notice they have moved but can’t reach them. For other types of elections, state law prohibits sending ballots to inactive voters, but for taxing districts — which local governments set up to pay for certain projects or services such as stadiums, irrigation, and parks — the law is not as clear. And a pair of court rulings have left some doubt about how that law should be applied.
https://www.votebeat.org/arizona/2025/03/20/cochise-county-jail-taxing-district-election-could-be-invalidated/