Voters line up at a polling place in Mesa on November 8, 2022.Photo Credit: Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
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According to new information obtained by Votebeat, Maricopa County is spending about $1,000 an hour for investigative teams to figure out what went wrong on Election Day in November.
A retired Arizona Supreme Court justice, election technology expert, printer supply store owner, and attorney, the team helps county voters count thousands of voters in the field that day. We are investigating the reason for the refusal. Suggest ways to prevent recurrence. The issue has caused voters headaches and delays, and has spurred Republican leaders to spread unproven allegations of corruption and fraud.
It’s unclear if the independent investigation, which began January 1, will reveal anything county officials don’t yet know. He said he always wanted an external review, regardless of what the internal reports said, to show that he had done so.
The county says election officials are still finishing an internal report on the matter and has so far denied Votebeat’s request for documents filed with the county attorney’s office in December. We have declined your communication request.
Hickman has not confirmed an independent review led by retired Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor, or would like to wait for the final and comprehensive findings from McGregor, an internal county report said. He said he had not asked for details of the
“It’s really independent,” Hickman said. “I want nothing to do with it other than what we need to do when we see it.”
County officials professed many times It says the printers the county uses to print ballots on demand aren’t printing the toner dark enough, causing problems with counting, but during previous elections and tests He said he does not know why the problem did not occur.
Altogether, printers rejected approximately 17,000 ballots on site, requiring voters to place their ballots in secure boxes and later count them at county central election centers. The Republican candidate who lost the election claimed the issue caused voter disqualification given the long lines in some places. has been aggregated.
team of experts
County attorney Rachel Mitchell, with the assistance of the county superintendent, hired McGregor on January 1 and agreed to pay her an hourly wage of $415. We did not put a cap on the number, the hours she worked, or the total cost of the independent review. Consent Obtained by Votebeat.
McGregor hired Neal Kelley, a longtime Orange County registrar of voters and election technology expert, for $200 an hour. Doug Meyer, owner of his CTS Office Supply in Cottonwood, made $125 an hour. Attorney Sandra Thomson was paid $250 an hour, according to details provided to Votebeat by Jennifer Lewer, a spokesperson for the county attorney’s office.In total, if all her members worked on a team of four at the same time, the hourly rate would be higher. The total comes to $990.
Kelley confirmed his involvement with Votebeat on Friday, but said it was not appropriate to comment further as the review was ongoing.
He served as the Orange County Registrar of Voters from 2005 to 2017. He runs an in-house ballot printing system that prints all ballots for the county and is nationally known as a ballot printing expert. He has served on numerous federal commissions and commissions to advise on election techniques.
Kelly is one of America’s most respected election officials, in part because of his transparency, use of data and expertise in contingency planning, according to the election. said Tammy Patrick, CEO of the Center’s Programs. Maricopa County Elections Office.
“He’s well known for his contingency planning, and I think that’s what makes him a particularly good choice,” Patrick said. “He was always prepared a lot in case something went wrong.”
Meyer’s Office Supplies Website, CTE Office Supply says he and Barbara Meyer have run the store since 1993. Here we provide printers and other office supplies, as well as technical services for printers. This includes his two varieties of OKI and Lexmark used by Maricopa County.
what the public knows
Election Administrator Scott Jarrett informed the supervisor just before finalizing the election results A preliminary investigation on November 28th revealed that the printer’s toner was not adhering properly or thick enough to the back of the ballot.
“I was very puzzled as to why this was a problem, because I stress tested the vote-on-demand printer,” he said. “We did it right before this election.”
The county has deployed technicians to approximately one-third of its 223 Vote Centers to address Election Day ballot counting issues. According to a letter sent to the Attorney General’s Office by county officials, Late November.
The letter noted that “other common face-to-face voting factors” had forced counters to reject ballots and voters to put their ballots in a secure box known as “Door 3.” It showed what county officials knew. Of the 16,724 “Door 3” ballots, nearly 1,600 could not be counted because voters used ballpoint pens instead of using county-provided felt-tip pens or did not completely fill in the oval. Mark their selection.
Votebeat analysis published in early December It turns out that the printer does not have the capability to print a lot of double-sided ballots on such thick and long ballots, which is likely causing the toner problem.in the meantime court in a few weeks, county election officials revealed another problem for the first time. Some ballot images were printed smaller than they should be on the page.
Testimony in Maricopa County Superior Court In December, Jarrett told a judge after hearing a challenge filed by unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake that some printers were mistakenly set to “shrink” to fit the ballot image. Because of this, county officials noticed that the ballot image was printed too small on the paper, he said. page. He said this only happened in three places, but Lake witnesses said they noticed it in many more places when reviewing ballots as part of the incident. rice field. The county has not publicly addressed this discrepancy. According to testimony, voters who used the wrong pen also caused some problems.
Votebeat requested an internal county report in January, but the county denied the request. When asked for a more complete explanation, department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson said the report was incomplete. She said the report would eventually be released.
“We are still working on an in-depth review and have no responsibility to release anything unfinished to the public,” she said.
Gilbertson said Jarrett submitted a draft report to the county attorney’s office in December, but it hasn’t been made public outside of the office.
Independent research gives fresh eyes and credibility
Former regulator Bill Gates said he felt it was important to have a “fresh eye” on the issue. Additionally, an independent investigation is likely to be trusted by people who don’t trust the county, he said.
“For those who have unfairly raised questions about the integrity of the Maricopa County election, I hope it brings even more credibility to the findings of those who see the world that way,” Gates said.
Patrick agreed that an external review made sense.
“If a county or state only did an internal review, there would be a lot of people who would discredit it, disrespect it, or give it no legitimacy,” Patrick said. We hope that having a value means that all stakeholders have made decisions and are happy with what they have found.”
Lawsuit From Lake and Failed Attorney General Candidate Abe Hamade They filed an election challenge claiming that the printer problem supported their request to have the election results reversed.
Lake’s lawsuit was dismissed and most recently Denied by Arizona Court of AppealsHamade’s lawsuit was also dismissed, he requested a retrial It was decided by a very narrow margin because he believes the court missed information about the election that came to light after the recount of his election. was also named in the lawsuit.
Mitchell asked McGregor to answer at least three questions. What caused the printer problems and why did these problems occur on November 8th instead of his August 3rd, the day of the primary election? And what steps can the county take to prevent these problems in the future?
The length of the review depends on McGregor and her team’s schedule, Lewer said, and the county doesn’t have information on how long it will take. I pointed out that it is normal for it to take months.
