FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) – The Pinal County election administrator has resigned after less than a year in office, alleging the county regulator tried to politicize elections in a small district east of Phoenix.

Pinal County acknowledged Geraldine Rolle’s resignation in a short memo posted online on Tuesday, saying County Mayor Leo Lu said, “At a very difficult time, and the improvements she has identified and begun to implement. ‘ and thanked Rolle for his work.

Mr. Rolle was not available for comment on Wednesday.

In a letter released by Pinal County, Roll said he had been “ridiculed, disrespected, threatened, and attacked against my reputation and ethics.”

She also accused Lu of failing to protect her from attacks by Republican county officials.

“There are significant limits to how we can get clean elections when we give in to the Republican faction,” she wrote.

She concluded, “Really, with all due respect, Geraldine Rolle.”

Rolle, a former acting county attorney, said after the county experienced some setbacks, including running out of ballots for some races in the primary ballot and running out of ballots on election day in some precincts. At the end of last year, he was appointed director of elections. Roll himself had not yet run for election.

Then, just before the end of 2022, Pinal County discovered an error in counting some ballots, resulting in a discrepancy of about 500 votes between the accredited election count and the recounted count. occurred. The county has a population of approximately 450,000.

County regulators recently expressed interest in trial counting some 2022 ballots.

–