Pretty sure these aren’t mail-in ballots. They count those first. These are ballots people walked in
If you are sent a mail-in ballot, you CAN return it by dropping it off at a voting site on Election Day. That is what my wife and a lot of CONSERVATIVES did to prevent any mischief by post office workers. They are also the last counted - which should be good news for Lake.
If you were mailed a ballot (because you are on the state’s Permanent Early Voting List — or PEVL, which started in 2007), you cannot walk in and cast a vote directly on Election Day. You can fill out a provisional ballot, but it won’t be counted until someone checks to see if you had already mailed a ballot in. That is to prevent double voting.
Note: In 2016, Arizona passed HB 2023 to restrict ballot harvesting in Arizona unless the person collecting the ballot is a family member, a person living in the same household, or a caregiver. Since the 1970s, Arizona has required people to vote at their specific precinct.
General Brnovich intervened on behalf of Arizona after the Secretary of State refused to defend the measures.
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) asked SCOTUS to bring clarity to these matters after a misguided ruling by the Ninth Circuit struck the measures down.
The High Court heard oral arguments on March 2, 2021, and ruled in favor of Attorney General Brnovich on July 1, 2021.
https://www.azag.gov/criminal/eiu/ballot-harvesting
Also:
“Prosecutors are seeking a one-year prison sentence for a school board member in southern Arizona for illegally collecting four early ballots during the 2020 primary election...July 07, 2022
Authorities say Fuentes and Juarez participated in “ballot harvesting.” That’s a practice once used by both political parties to boost turnout but was made illegal by a 2016 state law that barred anyone but a family member or caregiver from returning early ballots for another person. It’s the only case filed so far by the state attorney general under the law, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last year.
Authorities say Fuentes, a former San Luis mayor, ran a sophisticated operation using her status in Democratic politics in the Arizona border city to persuade voters to let her gather and, in some cases, fill out their ballots. But the crime she admitted in court last month does not involve filling out ballots or any broader efforts.
In a court filing Wednesday, prosecutors said Fuentes “appears to have been caught on video running a modern-day political machine seeking to influence the outcome of the municipal election in San Luis, collecting votes through illegal methods, and then using another person to bring the ballots the last few yards into the ballot box.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/sentencing-set-arizona-ballot-harvesting-case-86351343