Latest barriers to Arizona mail voting are another unnecessary impediment to election access

From the Brennan Center:

Arizona became the latest state to restrict voting when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) signed a bill last month limiting the collection of mail-in ballots, a tactic commonly used by civic and political groups to gather ballots that had been requested by early voters. Now only family members, caregivers, and postal workers can collect them. Local advocates called the measure “voter suppression” and an “attempt to limit first-time voters.”

Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon State’s late March presidential primary was something of a fiasco. In Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, some waited as long five hours to cast their ballots. To cut costs, officials reduced polling sites by 70 percent — from 200 four years ago to 60. This meant there was one polling place for every 21,000 voters, compared to one for every 2,500 voters in the rest of the state.

Experts blamed the long lines on miscalculations by election officials coping with strained budgets. They also noted that a full-strength Voting Rights Act (the Supreme Court gutted its key provision in 2013) could have allowed the federal government to stop the county from reducing the number of poll sites before Election Day. The Justice Department sent a letter to Maricopa County officials Friday asking for information about the cuts.