File Photo / Cronkite News
To Sarah Blue/ Cronkite News
PHOENIX – Officials in Maricopa and Mojave counties certified the results of the Nov. 8 election on Monday, but Cochise County officials refused to certify the results by the legal deadline, delaying them until Friday. Graham County had previously accredited that result by unanimous vote on Monday, November 21.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors ruled the result 5-0 after an occasionally contentious hearing that lasted more than four hours.
Board Chairman Bill Gates told attendees, “We’re very careful and methodical before accreditation.” “It incorporates not only in-depth facts and data from county election experts, but also comments from the public.”
By law, all Arizona counties must complete their ballots within 20 days after the election. This year he is until November 28th.
As of Monday morning, only Maricopa, Mojave, and Cochise of Arizona’s 15 counties have outstanding certification. Cochise officials on Monday voted him 2-1 to postpone certification, citing suspected irregularities.
Republican Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby said he wanted more time to question officials about properly certified voting equipment and called for a delay until Friday. voted in favor of.
“The agenda for this meeting needed to provide interaction between subject matter experts on voting machines and representatives from the Office of the Secretary of State,” Crosby said at the hearing.
“The Office of the Secretary of State has provided supporting documentation confirming that the Cochise County election equipment is properly certified,” said Sophia Solis, deputy public affairs officer for the Secretariat. “The oversight board had all the information it needed to prove this election, but failed to meet its responsibilities to Cochise’s voters.”
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced Monday night that her office has filed a lawsuit against Cochise County. She said, “Cochise County had a legal obligation to prove the results of her 2022 general election by today. caused the Hobbes tweeted.
Prominent Arizona Republicans, including Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake and Attorney General Candidate Abe Hamade, are among the most prominent Arizona Republicans in both the 2022 election and Joe Biden’s 2020 election. I challenged the validity.Hamade edged out Democratic opponent Chris Mays by just 510 votes, and the race went to Go to automatic recountLake lost the gubernatorial race to Democrat Hobbes.
Emotions were running high during public comment at the Maricopa County hearing on Monday. Many speakers urged the Board not to authenticate votes, noting several tallying machines in Maricopa County. stopped working on voting day.
Scott Jarrett, Maricopa County’s director of elections who specializes in election day and emergency ballots, confirmed the issue was the result of a printing error. brand of printer did not print marks dark enough to be read by the tally machine.
“This was not specific to any particular region or any particular region,” he said.
If a ballot is not counted by the counting machine, voters can either try the machine again, discard the unread ballot and start over, or place their ballot in a sealed slot called Box 3 at the polling place. You can choose will be counted later.
At the hearing, some expressed concern about whether the sealed votes were actually being counted. Jarrett and Ray Valenzuela, Maricopa County election administrators who specialize in mail-in ballots and election services, reiterated that all ballots from Box 3 were tallied.
About 84 percent of voters in Maricopa County voted early, Valenzuela said.
Approximately 2.6 million people voted in Arizona. Office of the Secretary of StateMore than half of them were in Maricopa County, with over 1.5 million votes. In Cochise County he got just over 47,000 votes, and in Mojave County he got 83,000 votes.
Ryan Tisminezky contributed to this article.
