After election tally blunder, Pinal County talks potential consequences, changes

Pinal County supervisors and elections staff didn't know there was an issue with vote tallies before certifying the results of the November election, officials said Wednesday.

But in the aftermath of the tallying blunder and a disastrous primary election, the county's Board of Supervisors plans to discuss potential consequences and changes to restore public trust.

Options proposed by supervisors include asking state lawmakers to loosen the board's duty to canvass, or certify, election results and holding a series of special meetings that would feature witness testimony and evidence.

And the county may try to get its money back from former Elections Director Virginia Ross, who departed for retirement with a $25,000 bonus after what previously was thought to be a smooth November election.

The county revealed last week that it made errors in counting some ballots as a 500-vote discrepancy between certified election tallies and recounted results came to light.

The issues came after a primary in which the county's elections staff sent erroneous ballots to 63,000 early voters and one-quarter of the county's polling stations ran out of ballots on election day.

The county, which lies south and east of Maricopa County, is home to about 450,000 residents and has experienced rapid growth in recent years. About 140,000 voters cast ballots there in the November election.

The tallying problems didn't change the results of two races — for state attorney general and state schools superintendent — that were recounted statewide because of tight margins. And numerous officials said they believe the recount results are accurate.

But that hasn't stopped some from sowing doubt. The newly counted ballots narrowed the lead of Attorney General-elect Kris Mayes, a Democrat, over Republican opponent Abe Hamadeh in one of the tightest races in Arizona history, prompting Hamadeh to file a new motion contesting the results.

He also called for people to pack the Pinal County Board of Supervisors chambers for a Wednesday meeting in a post that garnered more than 3,700 likes on Twitter.

"Demand answers from them on why they withheld the massive election discrepancy information from the court," Hamadeh wrote in the post.

Only a handful of people appeared to speak before the board Wednesday morning.

When did Pinal County know about the tallying problems?

Officials sought to lay out a timeline at Wednesday's meeting of how they discovered and investigated the counting issue.

County Attorney Kent Volkmer said all votes initially were counted by Nov. 17, and the results were sent to the board that evening. Supervisors then certified those results Nov. 21.

"The canvassing of the results isn't a blessing of the results, or anything along those lines," Volkmer said. "It says, 'This is what was transmitted to us. This is official. We're now transmitting it to the Secretary of State's Office so that election challenges can begin."

That same day, Elections Director Geraldine Roll began preparing for a recount. Officials had become aware of an Election Day issue with voter check-ins at some polling sites. Some check-in stations weren't properly scanning driver's licenses.

"We knew ... that there was some discrepancy in what our poll pad numbers were reporting and what our actual vote count was," Volkmer said. "But we believed that it was just that difference in people whose IDs didn't scan. We did not believe it impacted the vote totals whatsoever."

Related:Pinal County election results: 500-vote discrepancy was 'human error'

While looking into the problem, Roll found the discrepancies on Nov. 28, according to Volkmer. She checked to make sure there was no other potential explanation for the difference and then reported it to Volkmer Nov. 30.

"That's the first time Pinal County said, 'Uh oh,'" Volkmer said.

Elections staff initiated an in-depth investigation, Volkmer said, and ultimately reported the discrepancies to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office on Dec. 7, just after the recount began and days before Hamadeh filed his election contest on Dec. 9.

Volkmer said he hopes the calendar of events will put an end to "misinformation" around when Pinal County officials knew about the problems. Rumors have swirled, he said, that staff knew that the results were inaccurate before county supervisors canvassed the election.

He directly refuted that claim.

"That is categorically false," he said.

Tension over court order

County officials also have been criticized for not revealing the issues publicly until the results of the recount were announced.

Disclosing the issues to the judge in Hamadeh's election challenge or to the public, critics say, could have changed the outcome of his case, which was ultimately dismissed.

But Volkmer said those with knowledge of the situation were gagged by the ongoing recount and held in a "cone of silence."

"Right in the midst of us discovering this, we were put under a court order that we cannot publicly disclose this information to anybody," he said.

Supervisors showed tension and disagreement Wednesday over whether they were still able to talk generally about the undercount.

Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh said he believed supervisors and other county officials were prohibited from disclosing the exact counts of the results but were allowed to speak about the errors.

Related:Jim O'Connor, who raised election fraud claims, picked to lead Corporation Commission

Volkmer called that interpretation "overly technical," and Supervisors Mike Goodman, Stephen Miller and Jeffrey McClure also dissented. Their understanding based on discussions with Volkmer and other attorneys, they said, was that nothing could be said publicly about the situation before the results of the recount were read aloud in court.

"I walked out of those meetings thinking that this is absolutely not open until the right time to put this out there," Goodman said. "That's where I'm at."

Regardless, word got out in advance of the recount announcement. Constantin Querard, a conservative political consultant, posted on Twitter a day before the results were released that one Arizona county would have a discrepancy.

"From reliable source in rural county — sizable # of votes found during recount," he wrote. "Net benefit to GOP candidates in the 100s possibly? Yikes!"

Will a former elections director get a bonus?

To clean up its primary mess, Pinal County offered former Elections Director Virginia Ross a lucrative deal — a $175,000 salary and a $25,000 performance award in exchange for four months of work and a smooth November election.

That agreement put her toward the top of the pay scale in Pinal County and made her the highest-paid election official among Arizona's largest counties.

That bonus has already been paid out, officials say. But the counting problems have led some supervisors to question whether the county should ask for its money back.

Ross's contract, first reported by The Republic, laid out exactly what she needed to do to see her award:

• Deliver accurate ballots in sufficient quantities to the correct voting locations.

• Open polling locations on time with the necessary equipment.

• Properly train poll workers.

• Prepare for a successful accuracy test of equipment.

• Submit all reports per state law.

• Coordinate with city and town clerks.

Her bonus also was contingent on results being canvassed by the board.

Cavanaugh said he wants to use an upcoming informal board session to talk about "recovery" of the bonus, although he offered no details about how the county might go about rescinding the award.

Ross's bonus isn't the only election-related item up for discussion. Cavanaugh proposed a series of special meetings to investigate the county's primary and general election woes. He wants the board to levy the authority to subpoena witnesses and evidence for the hearings, he said.

Serdy said he hopes to discuss whether the county should stick with a model of elections being jointly run by the Recorder's Office and the Elections Department, as has been the case since 2017. Before that, elections were solely administered by the county recorder.

"If nothing else, we could just have a discussion and clarify everything and see if there's any room for improvement," Serdy said.

Serdy also wants to examine the board's duty to certify election results.

"The last two elections have been kind of wonky. What if 2024 is even worse and we're forced to vote 'yes' on something we don't want to vote 'yes' on," Serdy asked, adding that authority to change the board's responsibilities likely lies with the state Legislature. "I'd like to have that discussion to try to avoid that."

Sasha Hupka covers Maricopa County, Pinal County and regional issues for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip about county government or county services? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter: @SashaHupka.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: After vote tally blunder, Pinal County debates potential consequences