BISBEE, Ariz. (KGUN) — Bob Bartelsmeyer has been Cochise County’s election director for less than two weeks, but he is already hopeful of the county’s success after last year’s post-election hardships. there is

“We need to learn from history,” Bartelsmeyer said. “Anything that may have happened in this department needs to be fixed. Given public perception, we need to show that we are an elections office that demonstrates transparency and integrity at every level. ”

He said he wanted to be transparent and move forward from what happened over the past year. Mr. Bartelsmeyer has more than 30 years of experience working and running the elections department. Last year, he headed La Paz County’s electoral department.

“In the future, we hope to organize tours of the elections office here and public tours to show the election process, the machinery and everything that goes into elections. “They’ll be there,” Bartelsmeyer said.

Bartelsmeier was elected county clerk of Missouri at the age of 21. It was his teacher when he was a student that got him involved in politics and elections.

The new elections manager said finding managers and assistants for the department was a top priority after former employees left. Bartelsmeier said he spent his first days in the role meeting other county officials he would work with in the future and attending training in Phoenix.

He said he will continue to study files left behind by his predecessor to better understand the current processes and day-to-day work of election officials. Bartelmeier wants his department to follow state statutory and enacted laws because that is the law and what state and national electoral departments should follow.

He said he was aware that some members of the community and oversight board had expressed concerns about machines, including calling for 100% hand counting of ballots, so he said he would consider legislation on hand counting of ballots. rice field. Bartelmeier said there is a percentage of votes counted by hand to make it random and bipartisan. Hand counting acts as a “check and balance” system for the machine.

Since the Board of Supervisors voted to appoint him as interim election director earlier this spring, the election director reports to county registrar David Stevens.