Arizona's Maricopa County prepares to be in the election spotlight once again

PHOENIX — Maricopa County in Arizona — home to nearly 60% of the voting population in the swing state — will once again be in the spotlight come this fall’s general election.

Ever since 2020, that spotlight has brought with it pervasive conspiracy theories about elections — including from this year’s leading Republican U.S. Senate candidate in the state.

And for the past four years, election officials in Maricopa County have been on the frontlines of efforts to fight back against baseless claims with accurate information about the voting experience, how votes are counted and when results are released.

While state law hasn’t significantly altered how elections are conducted, county officials have planned a number of changes this year to try to improve election administration and prevent new conspiracy theories from sprouting.

For example, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors budgeted $9 million to buy new printers, replacing older models that struggled to properly print roughly 17,000 ballots on Election Day in 2022 — and led to unsupported fraud claims.

The office of Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, which is in charge of early voting by mail, also added more steps and audit cues as part of signature verification, the process used to ensure mail ballots were turned in by the voter the ballot was mailed to.

“Some of that has not been with a goal towards speed,” Richer said. “Some of that has been the goal towards increased integrity, increased eyeballs on it, increased scrutiny, increased documentation.”

But this year, he also hired more staff to verify those signatures, a step he hopes will allow the county to report more results sooner. That required building modular facilities at county elections