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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Seventh Legislature, Second Regular Session
electronic signatures; nomination petitions
Purpose
Requires the Secretary of State (SOS) to provide for nomination petitions for outlined local governing boards to be signed using E-Qual and requires candidates seeking office to designate alignment with a recognized political party, or lack thereof, within the E-Qual system before using the system.
Background
The SOS must provide a system for qualified electors to sign a nomination petition by way of a secure internet portal, otherwise known as E-Qual. The E-Qual system must allow only those qualified electors who are eligible to sign a petition for a particular candidate to sign the petition and must also provide a method for properly verifying the qualified elector's identity. The E-Qual system is available to candidates for: 1) statewide and legislative offices; 2) municipal, county, justice of the peace, constable and precinct committeeman offices; 3) federal offices; and 4) certain judicial offices (A.R.S. §§ 16-316; 16-317; 16-318; and 16-319).
Statute prescribes the minimum number of signatures that certain nomination petitions must contain as follows: 1) for a candidate for governing board of a school district or a career technical education district (CTED), at least one-half of one percent of the total voter registration in a school district or CTED if the board members are elected at large, or one percent of the total voter registration in a single member district if governing board members are elected from single member districts, or one-half of one percent of the total voter registration in the single member district if CTED district board members are elected from single member districts; 2) for a candidate for a community college district, at least one-quarter of one percent but not more than ten percent of the total voter registration in the precinct; and 3) for a candidate for a governing body of a hospital district or multi-county water conservation district, at least one-half of one percent of the vote in the special district, but not fewer than 5 signatures and not more than 250 signatures (A.R.S. § 16-322).
There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.
Provisions
1. Requires the SOS to allow for qualified electors to use a secure internet portal to sign a nomination petition for candidates for the governing boards of:
a) school districts or CTEDs;
b) community college districts;
c) hospital districts; and
d) multi-county water conservation districts.
2. Requires the secure internet portal to:
a) allow only those qualified electors who are eligible to sign the petition for a particular candidate to sign the petition;
b) provide for a method for the qualified elector's identity to be properly verified; and
c) provide for the SOS to transmit those filings or a facsimile to the officer in charge of elections for the appropriate office.
3. Allows a candidate to collect all of the candidate's nomination petition signatures by use of the online signature collection system.
4. Requires any candidate that is allowed to use the secure internet portal to designate whether the candidate is aligned with a recognized political party, is independent or is unaffiliated without regard to whether the candidate is nominated by a recognized political party, or is otherwise designated, before using the portal and only for the purposes of the portal.
5. Requires all candidates that are allowed to use the secure internet portal to be afforded equal access to the portal, including equal access for any candidate who submits petition signatures electronically to the filing officer for candidates for county, city, town or school board office.
6. Prohibits the SOS from denying, limiting, conditioning, delaying or otherwise restricting access to the online signature collection system based on the candidate's political party affiliation, lack of political party affiliation, method of nomination or ballot designation.
7. Requires the SOS to:
a) apply any rule, policy or procedure uniformly to all candidates who use the secure internet portal;
b) not take any action that results in disparate treatment among candidates for the same office; and
c) not prescribe, adopt or enforce any rule or procedure that interprets, expands, limits or otherwise modifies the requirements relating to equal treatment of candidates who use the secure internet portal.
8. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
House Action
FMAE 2/11/26 DPA 5-2-0-0
3rd Read 3/3/26 31-25-3-0-1
Prepared by Senate Research
March 13, 2026
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