On Monday, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors canceled their upcoming special meeting to discuss potential election litigation against Maricopa County and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
The board didn’t offer an explanation for their decision to cancel the meeting. They first announced the special meeting last week.
AZ Free News reached out to the board’s communications director for comment. He didn’t respond by press time.
The county delayed certification of their election results amid expressed uncertainty over the validity of Maricopa County’s results. They certified their results about two weeks ago. Chairman Ron Gould stated during the certification that he was compelled under threat of arrest to certify the results.
“I vote aye under duress. I found out today that I have no choice but to vote ‘aye’ or I will be arrested and charged with a felony,” stated Gould. “I don’t think that’s what our Founders had in mind when they used a democratic process to elect our leaders, our form of self-government. I find that very disheartening.”
🚨 Breaking 🚨
"I found out today that I have no choice but to vote "Aye" or I will be arrested and charged with a felony."
Ron Gould of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors was told he would be arrested if he did not certify the election.
The board is facing an open meeting law complaint filed by a Kingman-based political action committee (PAC) for making a “political statement” during certification of the election results. The PAC, Real Change for LD5, named Chairman Ron Gould and Supervisors Hildy Anguis and Travis Lingenfelter in the complaint submitted to Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Chairman Ron Gould called the complaint “baseless” in a statement to Mohave Valley Daily News.
“The agenda states ‘discussion and possible action re: Approval of the Canvass of the election,’” stated Gould. “I am sure that the attorney general will agree that the phrase possible action would cover approval and denial.”
Behind the complaint is the PAC founder and chair, J’aime Morgaine. She sued Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) in 2018 after he blocked her from his Facebook page; the ACLU picked up the lawsuit after Gosar restored her access and she dropped it. However, the ACLU also voluntarily dismissed the case four months later.
That same year, Morgaine ran an unsuccessful bid for the State Senate. She lost in the general election to Sen. Sonny Borrelli (LD-30).
In a statement, Morgaine called the board members’ protest over the election results a “nasty habit” that undermined confidence in elections.
“The bottom line is this is an election integrity issue,” said Morgaine. “These supervisors have every right to be angry and protest in any personal capacity, but they do not have the right or legal authority to misappropriate Mohave County’s governing forum or taxpayer resources to perpetuate disinformation about Mohave County’s election integrity and undermine confidence in Arizona’s elections.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Maricopa County wants to know how voters feel about this most recent general election. The survey was issued a few hours before the state certified the election results on Monday.
The Monday email from the Maricopa County Elections Department asked voters to describe their voting experience, how they voted, and if they felt informed on election procedures. The county asked voters impacted by Election Day problems the reason for their dissatisfaction, as well as where they voted. They also asked voters if vote centers rather than precinct-based locations made voting more convenient.
In some ways, this general election echoed the voter discontent and mistrust that arose following the 2020 general election. The embattled county has attempted to address the myriad claims of fraud arising from a chaotic Election Day prompted by faulty printer settings causing mass tabulator failures. The county reported last month that they’ve shared over 700 social media posts, conducted over 600 interviews, and submitted monthly newsletters to 40,000 subscribers this election.
There's been a variety of misinformation and misinterpretations of voter turn out data circulating social media. Here's a breakdown on all the data from @maricopavote's election reports:🧵
During its certification of the election results, the county specified further that faulty heat settings on retrofitted ballot-on-demand printers were to blame.
. @MaricopaVote : the faulty printer setting causing widespread tabulator issues occurred in one of two types of printers: the one retrofitted to be a ballot-on-demand printer, "Oki." County expressed confusion with its failure since stress testing went well. 71 sites impacted. pic.twitter.com/jZEmQiZXQn
The attorney general’s office questioned the county about these mass failures and reported complaints of disenfranchisement. About a week later, the day before the deadline set by Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright, the county answered with a report.
NEW: County responds to AG letter about Nov. election saying all laws were followed & all voters had the opportunity to legally and securely cast their ballot. Legal response: https://t.co/PItANauVz1 Details: https://t.co/07m2RlEaKH Key points: 🧵⬇️
The county’s troubles began earlier this year when doubts over the pens used for in-person voting resurfaced. The county swapped Sharpies for Pentel felt-tipped pens in July.
The changes prompted some activists to encourage rejection of the county’s protocol. Failed board of supervisors candidate Gail Golec advised voters to steal election pens in August. The county responded with a cease-and-desist letter to Golec.
More than 18K voters have successfully cast a ballot in person so far today! Minor tech issues have been resolved as well as reports of stolen pens. Please do not remove any voting materials from the polling place, including pens.https://t.co/WXsuEj0sDe
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) August 2, 2022
Election officials have reported that both the ink and felt tip pens pose problems. Occasionally, ink pen residue clogs the machines, and felt tip pen ink smears, causing ballot rejection, or the nibs break off.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
During the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday, several poll workers testified that election machines at their locations had issues prior to Election Day.
During its canvass of the election results, the county reported that stress testing prior to Election Day didn’t reveal tabulator or printer issues. The board ultimately voted to certify the election results.
Tom Vanek, who reported being a registration clerk at Dysart Community Center, said that his location experienced issues with the printers on the day before Election Day. He reported that those issues were resolved by the day’s end. However, Vanek said that none of the sitebooks were connected to the server on Election Day. That meant that none of their workers could clock in.
Vanek relayed that no troubleshooter was on site, and that the county hotline couldn’t resolve the issue. He reported that the first rounds of voters that showed up to vote left the site without voting. The troubleshooter couldn’t resolve the problem and sent for another technician: the t-tech . There was still a communication issue with the printers. The first voter was able to check in at 7 am, over an hour later, but the printer failed to print her ballot.
Poll Worker explains how his ENTIRE polling location was inoperable when they opened on Election Day.
This is getting very, very bad for Maricopa County. Very bad. Like, unbelievably bad. pic.twitter.com/Fsh83t6b26
Michelle Altherr, who reported working at the Estrella Foothills High School vote center, claimed that the tabulators were malfunctioning during training. Come Election Day, Altherr reported that her location’s scanners were down for two hours.
Several other workers who testified also questioned why the screening processes failed to capture the election machine issues prior to Election Day. They challenged the county’s assertion that the Election Day troubles didn’t qualify as disenfranchisement.
One such worker, Martha Kochi, reported that the machines at her location didn’t offer any explanation for many of the rejected votes like they normally could. Kochi added that there were three ballot-on-demand printers not functioning at her location, one of which stopped working for several hours.
Mary Ziola, a worker at Happy Trails Resort wearing a #AZREVOTE shirt, said the Door 3-only option for those affected by malfunctioning tabulators caused mass concern and anger with voters. Ziola said she witnessed voters who left without voting because of the wait times or concerns with provisional ballots. One purported voter was a policeman that had to leave on an emergency call; another, a nurse that had to leave to return to work.
Several others in addition to Ziola wore “#AZREVOTE” shirts: a growing movement of activists demanding a redo of the 2022 general election. The county reported over 16,700 ballots cast in Door 3 boxes.
Another worker, Mike Peterson from the Paradise Valley Community College location, said that forcing voters to cast a provisional ballot was disenfranchisement. He alleged that only 150 of 675 voters cast a vote at one point. Peterson contended that the county didn’t train poll workers on check-out procedure.
“We, as poll workers, were not taught how to check out voters at our poll centers,” said Peterson.
Maricopa Poll Worker CONFIRMS: Poll Workers WERE NOT trained properly, voters were 100% disenfranchised.
Peterson’s testimony conflicts with the county’s response to the attorney general about this issue. The county stated that it trained workers on check-out procedure, included relevant materials in inspectors’ training materials, and trained inspectors on check-out procedure in weekly workshops.
According to the county, 206 voters checked in at one location and voted at another. Of those voters, 84 successfully checked out and cast a regular vote. The other 122 cast provisional ballots.
Raquel Cantacessi, an observer at one of the Lutheran churches, expressed concern with the mixing of tabulated and untabulated ballots in Door 3. She claimed those were lost votes.
In their report, the county explained that two vote centers ran into that Door 3 ballot mixing issue: Church of Jesus Christ of LDS Gilbert and Desert Hills Community Church. The county stated that it backed out results reported on Election Night and retabulated those ballots.
Following public comment, the county issued over two hours of an in-depth dissection of election data. Explanations of this data and Election Day issues were also made available in a report issued on Sunday by the county’s newly-launched election disinformation center.
Elections day and emergency voting director Scott Jarrett disclosed that the county is conducting a root cause analysis to determine why the tabulators malfunctioned on Election Day.
Jarrett reported that, so far, they discovered one of the issues behind the widespread tabulator failures: one of the two types of ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers used by the county had a printer setting incompatibility with the ballot paper sizing. The county increased the ballot size from 19 to 20 inches to accommodate for several candidates and propositions that weren’t finalized until late August.
The county uses two different BOD printers. One of the printer types, the “Oki” model, had a heat setting that printed the ballot markings either too lightly or in a speckled manner. The Oki model was retrofitted in 2020 to be a BOD printer for this election.
“It was very perplexing to us why this was an issue because we stress-tested our ballot on demand printers; we did it right before as we were coming up to the election,” stated Jarrett.
. @MaricopaVote : the faulty printer setting causing widespread tabulator issues occurred in one of two types of printers: the one retrofitted to be a ballot-on-demand printer, "Oki." County expressed confusion with its failure since stress testing went well. 71 sites impacted. pic.twitter.com/jZEmQiZXQn
Contrary to circulated claims of hours-long wait times at most vote centers, the county declared that the average wait time on Election Day was three to six minutes and the longest wait times for 189 of the 223 vote centers was between one and 45 minutes.
The county said that none of their vote centers put a time limit on voters casting their vote. The county said that the Door 3 option for casting a ballot has been in place since 1996.
At one point, about 80,000 people were watching the meeting’s live stream. Much to the audience’s chagrin, public comments remained at the two minute time limit.
Arizona: It's been a long day at The Maricopa County Board – was up to 80,000 live viewers – now a reduced audience is waiting for them to certify their latest election debacle.
Some commenters criticized Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates’ and Recorder Stephen Richer’s involvement with the Republican Accountability Project (RAP): a Democratic dark money group. RAP’s Republican Accountability PAC spent over $4.5 million to ensure GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s defeat according to trigger reports on the secretary of state’s campaign finance portal.
Gates disputed allegations that the county speeded up their certification process. He reminded the audience that it was taking place 20 days after Election Day.
“To challenge unofficial results would be like to challenge a TV network’s prognostications after the polls close,” stated Gates. “The canvass is what makes the results official.”
Nothing like a golden hour to commemorate the delivery of our 2022 General Election Canvass to the State Capitol. ☀️ You can find out more about the canvass here: https://t.co/PwpG4yOb2Dpic.twitter.com/tUj9NGi0XV
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) November 29, 2022
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Maricopa County ended the public comment portion of its Monday meeting certifying the election results with compliments from a Democratic activist.
The final speaker after an hour and a half of public comments was Blake Lister: a 2020 Arizona State University (ASU) Barrett Honors College political science graduate who worked recently with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to lobby for the Equality Act. That legislation would protect sexual orientation and gender identity under the Civil Rights Act.
Lister said he is a supporter of the Constitution as instituted by the Founders. Lister thanked the county for upholding election integrity. His remarks prompted angry outbursts from the audience.
“As an American citizen, I am a supporter of our Constitution and the process for our republic our founders set out for us over 200 years ago: that we are a republic chosen for us by We the People through our Democratic process,” stated Lister. “While being faced with threats, including threats on your life Mr. Gates, this board, the recorder, and county employees, many of them temporary, worked tirelessly long, 16-plus hour days to count every vote in a manner as timely as possible.”
Prior to HRC, Lister worked as a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) field manager and a campaign assistant for failed Democratic congressional candidate Hiral Tipirneni. Lister also worked as an Arizona Democratic Party field organizer; an intern with the Arizona Advocacy Network (AAN), a political action committee that shuffles leftist dark money; and an intern for Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).
Lister is also a graduate of several activist training groups: the Maricopa County Democratic Party’s Activist Academy, the Arena Academy, and Leading for Change programs.
This morning, I spoke at the @maricopacounty BOS meeting to uphold our democratic process and to thank our hardworking election workers.
Leading For Change (LFC) was founded by Beth Meyer: a former executive for the Center for Progressive Leadership and Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona. Meyer also founded and serves on the board of AAN.
Meyer formerly served on the boards of Defenders of Children, NARAL Arizona, Arizona American Jewish Committee, Arizona ACLU, and the Arizona Family Health Partnership Board of Directors.
Among LFC’s board of directors is House minority leader Reginald Bolding (D-Laveen). Also on the board is: Nate Rhoton, the executive director of One-N-Ten: an LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization and longtimecollaborator with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH) transgenderism unit; Michelle Steinberg, public policy director and lobbyist for Planned Parenthood Arizona; Julie Rivera Horwin, former Arizona Education Association president and presently an National Education Association board member; and Roy Herrera, founding partner of a law firm that teamed up recently with Russiagate lawyer Marc Elias’ firm to prevent the cleaning of Arizona’s voter rolls.
Their board of directors previously included governor-elect Katie Hobbs when she was the Senate minority leader.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Maricopa County dropped the ball. They botched the election, and there is simply no way for politicians to gaslight their way out of it. After years of fearmongering from the media and the left that election integrity measures would suppress and disenfranchise voters, it turns out no one suppresses and disenfranchises voters quite like politicians and bureaucrats in Maricopa County.
Rather than taking accountability for their failures, they have rubbed their incompetence in the faces of frustrated voters, smugly downplaying their failure and patting themselves on the back, asserting that they made a “remarkable effort.”
All eyes were on this election. Everyone knew it would be contentious, that key races would be close, and that record levels of Republican voters would show up to vote in-person on election day. Given this, one would think election officials would go above and beyond to ensure every minute detail was ironed out so that the election process was beyond reproach.
Instead, within minutes of polls opening at 6 am, reports were coming in that tabulators were not accepting ballots…
