It's unclear whether Mohave County received the political message conveyed by the Phoenix-based arts-oriented group, which claims to advocate for various causes and people of color. The Huerta Arts Movement has ended a short-lived campaign opposing the hand-counting of election ballots in northwestern Arizona.
The Board of Supervisors twice considered and twice rejected the drop-off device in favor of hand-counting election ballots in Mohave County. Executive Director Ksenia Orona said machine counting has provided fair and secure elections in Arizona for 20 years, but the Huerta Arts Movement believes there are problems with counting ballots by hand. Ta.
The group ran a campaign on Facebook in late January and early February calling for Mohave County to “keep its hands off” ballots. The FB post, which was reproduced on a local highway billboard, featured a caricature of a member of the Board of Supervisors bagging election ballots.
“We were trying to make a little joke,” Orona said. “The idea was to step outside of the noise that a number of hands were creating by dropping pebbles into the pond to create ripples.”
Spokesman Dominic Medina said the group is urging local residents to speak out against the hand count.
“The purpose of this campaign is to alert people who may not be paying attention, so they may jump in and advocate for themselves and their communities,” Medina said. “We want to empower local people who should have a say in the work of the oversight board.”
The Huerta Arts Movement also said it is engaging the public against threats to voter integrity in Pinal County.
“The reason we advertise in Mohave County is because we want to make sure the rights of our voters are protected at every level,” Orona said. “If we see a threat anywhere in the state, we take action, because what happens in our backyard in Mohave County affects us on a statewide level.”
Mr. Orona and Mr. Medina declined to give their names when asked whether they had been successful in uniting local residents with efforts to oppose the cuts. They said they did not have permission to identify people, but expressed hope that local residents would fight to use machines to count ballots if the idea of hand counting resurfaces in the future.
