The Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, voted against election integrity. The 4 – 0 vote secured the County’s ability to rig elections with impunity with the purchase of new ballot counting equipment.
The County will spend over $800,000 on new centralized tabulation equipment, which unlike the current equipment, will not include precinct scanners.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry claims that the County cannot afford the scanners. Huckelberry argues that the County cannot afford to spend on a complete system because people are voting by mail. To which integrity experts counter that voters should avoid vote-by-mail entirely and cast their votes at the polls.
Many Pima County residents have reported being unable to cast their vote at the polls because of a glitch by the Pima County Recorder’s Office, which sent out early ballots to people’s homes.
It is in the early ballots that the integrity of the system is most vulnerable, and where fraud occurs, according to experts.
However, just this year the County used millions of taxpayer dollars to purchased land, which many say could have gone towards other items such as Election Equipment and PACC expansion. Critics say the County Administrator and Elections Director Brad Nelson have been aware for years that new precinct scanners were necessary.
The County purchased land for soccer fields with the stated purpose of hoping to draw more soccer events, and land in Painted Hills to add to its already massive cache of open space.
Soccer Fields = $10,058,874 (with interest)
● $1.75 million down payment (with unused general funds)
● $8,308,874 left to pay off
● $1.6 million yearly payment
Painted Hills = $8.3 million (with interest)
● Down payment of $3 million from unused open space Bond funds
● $1,061,000 yearly payment
● $5.3 million left to pay off
Total cost to purchase both properties: $18,358,874
Total debt added after down payments: $13,608,874
At Tuesday’s meeting, Nelson claimed that the old scanners would work with the new equipment. However, Election Integrity commissioners William Beard and Christopher Cole told the supervisors that the existing precinct scanners cannot be used with the new election equipment. The old and new equipment operate under different software systems.
Supervisor Ally Miller, who would have been the only supervisor with the political will to pull the equipment item from the Consent Agenda, however she was not present at Tuesday’s meeting due to a death in the family.
As Pima County residents funneled out of Tuesday’s meeting of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, one small business owner was heard to say, “I am so sick of hearing people complain about this God-forsaken place. They don’t anything about it. They sure weren’t here today.”
The centralized system in Cochise County did not work during last week’s Primary Election, and the memory cards from their machines had to be sent to Graham County for a recount.