Arizona Supreme Court Declines Emergency Request to Extend Mail Ballot Deadline

An election worker sorts ballots, in an undated file photo. John Moore/Getty Images

Arizona’s Supreme Court on Nov. 10 denied an emergency request to extend the deadline for officials to fix problems with mail ballots, roughly a day after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted the petition, citing delays in vote counting.

The state’s highest court ruled on Sunday that election officials in eight of the state’s 15 counties had reported that all voters with “inconsistent signatures” had been properly notified and given an opportunity to respond. The ACLU and Campaign Legal Center named several county registrars, including Maricopa County’s Stephen Richer, in their petition filed on Nov. 9.

Arizona law requires that people who vote by mail receive notice if there are issues with their ballots, such as a signature not matching one on file, and be allowed to correct it through a process known as “curing.”

In their emergency petition with the high court, the groups said that as of the evening of Nov. 9, more than 250,000 mail-in ballots had not yet been verified by signature, with the majority of those in Maricopa County. They argued that tens of thousands of Arizona voters could be disenfranchised due to the ballot restrictions.

The groups wanted the original 5 p.m. Sunday deadline to be extended to up to four days after a voter is sent notice of a problem. The groups argued in the petition that “tens of thousands of Arizonans stand to be disenfranchised without any notice, let alone an opportunity to take action to ensure their ballots are counted.”

“Because these ballots have not even been processed, Respondents have not identified which ballots are defective and have not notified voters of the need to cure those defects,” their petition stated.

“The Court has no information to establish in fact that any such individuals did not have the benefit of ‘reasonable efforts’ to cure their ballots,” wrote Justice Bill Montgomery, who served as duty judge for the seven-member court. He noted that no responding county requested a time extension.

Montgomery added that the court has not been given evidence suggesting “any voters will be prevented from curing a defective ballot by today’s 5:00 p.m. deadline” and that there is currently “no evidence of disenfranchisement before the Court.”

As of Sunday morning, Maricopa County, the state’s largest by population, had more than 200,000 ballots that needed to be counted. The Arizona secretary of state reported that more than 3 million ballots were cast in the election.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Arizona GOP had filed court papers that opposed the groups’ emergency request.

The ACLU “lost its hail mary last minute lawsuit to extend the cure period for mail ballots lacking signature matches. Ballot curing is now over in Arizona. Let’s finish the tabulation and wrap this up,” Harmeet Dhillon, who represented the RNC in the case, wrote in a post on social media platform X.

Republican Senate President Warren Petersen wrote that he would authorize the Senate to “intervene” and defend the current state law to “determine the outcome as soon as possible.”

“It has already taken too much time! And next session will re-introduce bills to get election results, night of,” he said.

The Associated Press and other outlets have projected that President-elect Donald Trump was the winner of the state over Vice President Kamala Harris. Senate candidate Rep. Reuben Gallego (D-Ariz.) was leading Republican candidate Kari Lake as of Monday morning, according to projections.

During the 2024 election, Arizona voters cast more than 2.3 million ballots by mail, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. More than 4.3 million people are registered to vote in the state, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.