Did We Leave Ballots on the Table?
I received a call from an investigative reporter last week. He posed this question: Do you think by encouraging people to not mail in their ballots—to walk them into the voting centers—that it may have discouraged people from voting?
Voter Turnout
Voter turnout across all counties in Arizona was down. What we don’t know yet is whether it was Democrats or Republicans who did not show up. In the primary election (2022), 86% of the ballots were cast early in Pima County; this was a significant increase in early voting. Historically, the Republican party begins right after the early ballot drops to “chase ballots”. We receive data every day on who has turned in their ballots, and we contact those who have not turned them in yet. We did that this year as well but were told by the voters that they were going to walk them into the vote center on election day. As I traveled from vote center to vote center on Election Day, I did see many people going into vote centers with their yellow envelopes in hand. But the question remains, how many people did not show up on Election Day with their mail-in ballot?
We will be able to answer that question when we receive the voter database in January—we will be able to see who received a mail ballot and did not vote it on Election Day and how many ballots we left on the table that could have propelled our candidates to victory.
How Did Republicans Do in Pima County?
In 2018, Pima County had roughly 540,000 voters. In 2022, we had roughly 640,000. Voter turnout in 2022 was 63.07% in Pima County, down from 70.55% in 2018—again, we don’t know if it was Republicans or Democrats who didn’t show up. But let’s hypothesize that it was Republicans who did not show up because of the emphasis on election security and mail-in ballots. Statistically, our statewide candidates did as well in Pima County in 2022 as the statewide candidates did in 2018 except for the Governor’s race.
| Race | 2018 | 2022 |
| Governor | 47.45% | 39.4% |
| Secretary of State | 40.70% | 38.1% |
| Attorney General | 41.49% | 40.0% |
| Treasurer | 45.31% | 45.1% |
| Supt of Instruction | 40.15% | 40.5% |
Note: Doug Ducey was the incumbent Governor in 2018
Overall, voter turnout was down 2.59% in the state of Arizona. If those are Republican voters, could that have translated into enough votes for us to have won the Governor’s, Secretary of State election? And with the Attorney General’s race down just 500 votes, would that have been a significant win for the Republicans?
Was the Election Day Strategy Successful?
There are still a lot of “ifs” out there regarding the voter turnout that will be answered soon.
- Was it Republicans, Democrats, or Independents who didn’t show up?
- If it was Republicans, was it because they didn’t mail in their ballot, or did they not show up on Election Day?
- How many votes would ‘Republican no returns’ translate to?
- Did the Republican primary opponent and their supporters show up for the Nominee—or did they undervote?
And the fundamental question is was the strategy of telling people to drop their mail-in ballots off at the voting centers the right strategy? Should we have encouraged those who mail in their ballots to do so early and track their ballot?
We are going to have to game this out before 2024. We will have an opportunity with the 2023 all mail city election to model the returns and apply it to a 2024 model. We have a lot of work to do across the state.
Let’s figure this out. Join me.