At a Special Council Meeting on October 28, 2015 at 3 p.m., Oro Valley Town Council voted to approve residents’ request to include an Oro Valley race in its hand count audit under the following conditions:
· Pima County agrees that it is convinced it has the legal authority to request this hand count outside the statutes, and agrees that no lawsuit will be filed by Pima County against Oro Valley or any of its officers.
· The results of this hand count may not be used to affect the outcome of any election, and if it is, the Town’s permission is withdrawn because it then violates state law.
· Pima County agrees to pay all the associated costs of this hand count.
· If any lawsuit is filed, Pima County agrees to pay any and all of the costs associated with any defense and appeal if necessary.
Related article: Oro Valley Town Council Moves To Thwart Verifiable Elections
On October 22, the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved a randomly selected hand count audit of the upcoming election results for Pima County, the City of Tucson and the Town of Oro Valley in a 4-0 vote. While County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry had hoped to prove verification of the votes was illegal, opinions from both the Arizona Secretary of State and the Attorney General’s office indicated that there is no legal prohibition on conducting a hand count audit of local races.
Both City of Tucson and the Town of Oro Valley were required to approve the audit which will be paid for by Pima County.
On October 27 at 2:00 p.m., Oro Valley stealthily posted the agenda for a Special Meeting to be held on October 28 at 3:00 p.m. to vote on this item. The agenda was not announced, or distributed through the Town’s automated List Serve system as is customary with Regular Agendas.
Oro Valley staff recommended the denial of this request from Pima County supposedly based on legal “concerns” that were addressed in a confidential attorney-client memorandum sent to the Council.
Staff cited ARS 16-602 and Chapter 12 of the Secretary of State’s Elections Procedures Manual along with a carefully selected comment from Secretary of State Michelle Reagan to support their reasoning. They chose to ignore her statements “…the Secretary of State encourages this voluntary exercise and believes that expanded hand counts represent good public policy,” and “The Secretary strongly encourages such efforts, and trusts that Pima County voters will be reassured through this process.”
Further, the Attorney General cited the same statute and indicates that “Pima County would not violate ARS 16-602(B)(2)(f) if it were to conduct a hand count of the races in question.”