What Pinal County Board Chair Jeff Serdy has promised will be “a very transparent process of our election issues no matter how long it takes” began Wednesday with disturbing revelations, unusual candor, and a high degree of frustration.
One of the most remarkable parts of the meeting occurred when Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh addressed new Elections Director Geraldine Roll about “machine errors, human errors, and process errors” which occurred during Pinal County’s 2022 General Election under Roll’s predecessor, Virginia Ross.
The degree of those errors, which included more than 500 ballots not being counted, was not publicly disclosed until Dec. 29, a few weeks after Ross departed.
The disclosure of the errors occurred when the results of a statewide recount were announced in the races for Arizona Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and one seat in the state House of Representatives.
“In your experience, have you identified other management errors that would have helped to make this election smooth?” Cavanaugh asked Roll, who replied with an unexpected level of bluntness.
“Again, I believe the [Nov. 21] canvass was done prematurely,” responded Roll, a lawyer who previously worked for the Pinal County Attorney’s Office. “I think we had enough to have raised a few questions and we should have taken more steps before we canvassed.”
Roll then added, “we certainly had time,” referring to the Nov. 28 deadline for the state’s 15 county boards to complete the canvass of their official election results.
The meeting also revealed that Ross, who was working under a short term contract, had a pre-canvass report sent to the five-member board of supervisors on Nov. 17, less than one hour after staff completed counting provisional ballots.
“No opportunity was taken to really look at those numbers carefully,” Roll added.
Pinal County Officials Stayed Mum About Vote Count Discrepancies During Election Trials
On Dec. 7, county staff finally notified the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office about “discrepancies” with their canvassed vote totals and recount totals. But no one looped in Abe Hamadeh nor Judge Lee Jantzen, the Mohave County judge who dismissed Hamadeh’s election challenge just days before Pinal County’s errors were revealed along with the statewide recount results.
Hamadeh has asked Jantzen for a new trial in order to introduce evidence concealed by attorneys for the secretary of state. Shortly after the Pinal County board meeting, Hamadeh was looking forward, focused on how the situation could convince Jantzen to allow more opportunity for review other counties.
We simply ask that we be given the opportunity to apply the Pinal County process across the board to conduct a physical inspection and hand count of ballots that if the Pinal County issue repeats itself anywhere else in the state could be outcome determinative in this election.
— Abe Hamadeh (@AbrahamHamadeh) January 4, 2023
No matter how Hamadeh’s legal action works out, Cavanaugh and Serdy have promised Pinal County residents a full accounting of what went wrong in 2022, both during the primary election in August and then the November general election.
They also promise Roll, who took over as elections director on Dec.5, will receive the support she needs for her beleaguered elections department.
“I think next time we’ll have a solid election,” said Cavanaugh.
Roll’s candor during Wednesday’s board meeting impressed Ally Miller, who served as a Pima County supervisor from 2013 to 2020. During that time, Miller raised several concerns about Pima County elections matters, but those experiences did not prepare her for the revelations made public at the Pinal County meeting.
“I was stunned as I listened to current elections director, Ms. Roll, describing numerous problems with the election canvass, including missing the count of more than 500 ballots,” Miller told Arizona Daily Independent. “It was clear Pinal County officials didn’t learn from the primary election and the election problems snowballed.
Miller expressed concern at the wide range of errors Roll and others reported during the meeting. She also echoed Cavanaugh’s praise for Roll’s openness about what went wrong under her predecessor’s watch, noting Roll was “left to clean up the mess” left by Ross, who collected a $25,000 bonus for a “smoothly run election.”
“Ms. Roll described failures with uncounted ballots as well as improper loading of registered voter lists from DMV to the poll books which caused failures when voters attempted to check in,” Miller noted. “She stated that early ballots with write in candidates were comingled with poll ballots with write in candidates. She stated she even ran the machine count a 3rd time because she didn’t trust the second machine count.”
Miller was also dismayed by the timeline described at Wednesday’s meeting.
“It was clear from the discussion that county officials as well as the supervisors were made aware of these problems, yet they rushed the certification a full week prior to the deadline,” she said. “This is an inexcusable action on the part of the former elections director who received $200,000 for a four-month contract and then moved to Texas.”
The Pinal County board should not have done the canvass on Nov. 21 under the circumstances that were known at the time, Miller believes. And now, the only way to ensure voters are not disenfranchised is to perform a complete hand count of all precincts to have a true and accurate vote count.
“Pinal County residents and residents of Arizona deserve better,” Miller said.