The Georgia elections official, who is at the center of the 2020 Georgia recount, said Friday that the effort by Republican regulators to hand-count the 2024 ballots in one Arizona county was the “most stupidest imaginable move.” thought,” he said.
Gabriel Sterling, head of ballot enforcement for Georgia’s Office of the Secretary of State, said the election was rigged by former President Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters to push for an outcome in favor of Joe Biden. He maintained a firm stance on state election administration. President Trump’s allegations of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election are unfounded.
In 2020, Trump encouraged death threats and other acts of violence against himself and other election officials, Sterling said, adding that questioning the election undermines democracy.
Arizona, another battleground state, received similarly bitter criticism from many Republicans after its gubernatorial election during last November’s midterm elections. In the end, Democrat Katie Hobbs was said to have won by about 17,000 votes over Trump-backed Republican Kari Lake, but based on allegations of election fraud. Continuing legal appeals.
Mojave County, Arizona, recently completed a hand-counting experiment after Northwest county regulators voted to call for plans to hand-count ballots for all elections in 2024.
Sterling tweeted Friday morning following the results of the experiment, saying, “Promoting a shift to manual counting of ballots for all elections by a very small number of activists is oh my… the dumbest idea imaginable.” posted on “It’s just as hard to do something stupider than this. It’s more expensive, it’s (significantly) less accurate, the results are delayed, and the results are questionable.”
Newsweek Sterling was emailed for comment.
The experiment was approved by Mojave officials in June and directed the County Elections Office to investigate its feasibility during the period June 22-26. According to the Arizona Mirror, the Republican Oversight Board voted almost unanimously, with one vote against.
The experiment found that it took a group of seven part-time employees three days, or eight hours per day, to count the 850 ballots. Another four full-time staff members oversaw the voting process and tally.Them result It was announced after officials counted 850 sample votes, including an average of 36 races per ballot, or about 30,600 contests.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, wrote to the Mojave County Oversight Board following news that it was investigating the hand-counting of ballots.
Fontes said earlier last month, “If there is a plan to begin full hand counting for future elections, violating state law will not expose these officials to serious legal risks, including criminal liability. I’m afraid,” he wrote. He “strongly urges county officials to consider the adverse effects on the electoral system, voters, and taxpayers that would result from the introduction of election procedures that have no legal basis or proof of concept, increasing the risk of error.”
A spokesperson for Fontes said: Newsweek “The results of the feasibility study reinforce the Secretary’s concerns about cost, accuracy and feasibility,” he said in an email Friday.
It’s estimated that it would cost the county an additional $1.14 million to manually tally the 2024 races instead of machine tallying, but only if the recount isn’t done like it was in 2022. Be careful. tweeted Maricopa County Registrar Stephen Richer, elected in November 2020.
Richer, a Republican, filed a defamation suit against Lake last month, blaming him for last fall’s loss to Hobbes.
It turned out that there were 46 errors in the manual counting. In a normal election, such an error would require a full recount of the ballot across all races on a particular ballot. That retaliation time was not considered in this study.
“A recount would cost more,” Richer tweeted. “The error rate he had was 5.4%. The maximum allowable machine error rate for certified equipment is 0.00001%.”
Newsweek I emailed Richer for comment.
Such increased costs, he said, are due to the availability of venues large enough to conduct tackling, network infrastructure for live streaming and counting, and the need for part-time and full-time staff. It is said that it is due to compensation, payment to the security guard who monitors the facility. result.
The board will discuss the results of the experiment on Aug. 1 and adopt, modify, or reject the manual tally plan, according to board documents.
