On May 11, 2021, Governor Ducey signed SB1485 into law. It changed the Permanent Early Voting List to the Active Early Voting List. PEVL became AEVL. To simplify, we’ll just call it EVL.
Last week, we looked at Inactive Voters. Active Voters become Inactive if they don’t vote at all and don’t respond to official mail over two 2-year election cycles.
The change from PEVL to AEVL also applies to two 2-year election cycles. So, what’s the difference?
There are two kinds of Active Voters, those on the EVL and those who are not (non-EVL). Inactive voters do not have the option to be on the EVL.
Under the new law, a voter who is on EVL receives a ballot in the mail and either returns it by mail or drops it off in a dropbox at a Vote Center will continue to get future ballots by mail. If that same voter ignores the ballot they got in the mail and instead goes to a Vote Center and votes in person (which is legal), they will be dropped from the EVL.
When enacted, the law was not made retroactive, so we won’t have gone through two complete election cycles until 2025. The impact should be evident with the quarterly voter registration totals in April 2025. If run today, LD3 would have more voters rolled off the EVL than other Districts – by far. GOP voters would be removed at almost 7 times the rate of Dems. Could this be why failed candidate Lake says she’s dumping a million dollars into “ballot chasing” for 2024? Hmmm.
Remember, County Recorders will not remove a voter until they have attempted unsuccessfully to reach them by mail two times. Voters can also request one-time vote-by-mail ballots which does not impact their EVL status. Here is a summary of the rules on Active vs Inactive and PEVL vs AEVL. The AEVL change is highlighted.
In some parts of the US, Vote-by-Mail is called Vote-from-Home. I like it!