Six Months Later County Has Provided No Details Of Threats To Its Elections Staff

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Lisa Marra

An effort to get the Cochise County Republican Committee (CCRC) to issue a commendation award to the county’s former elections director suffered a second overwhelming defeat this week, drawing renewed attention to the continued unsubstantiated claims that local elections officials received threats against their safety.

The county’s Republican precinct committeemen gathered March 6 for a meeting at which time a resolution was put forth to recognize Lisa Marra, who it was announced the same day had joined the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office as Deputy Elections Director.

Marra quit her job as Cochise County’s Elections Director effective Feb. 8. less than two months before ballots are to be mailed out in a critical countywide vote on funding a new jail facility.

The resolution resoundingly defeated at the CCRC meeting noted in part that Marra fulfilled her duties “despite harassment, abuse, threats, and intimidation, even to the extent of death threats against her and her family.”

Yet a public records request submitted Aug. 31, 2022, to the Clerk of the Cochise County Board about often cited claims of threats has led to the release of only 57 pages by the Cochise County Attorney’s Office in the last six months – none of which denote a specific act of harassment, intimidation, or threat against Marra nor her staff.

The records request was made to Cochise County after an attorney for Marra sent a letter to this reporter last August referencing purported “threatening phone calls” received by Marra in connection with official duties.

The request sought all communications between Oct. 1, 2020 to current date between Marra and any county employee or official “about the receipt of, knowledge of, or suspicion of any purported ‘threat’ directed toward Marra, her staff, or the Elections Department.”

The request also asked for all communications during the same period to or from Marra to any law enforcement agency or representative, including CCSO, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice.

Both Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and County Attorney Brian McIntyre were copied on the request, as were all three county supervisors, County Recorder David Stevens, and County Administrator Richard Karwaczka who was Marra’s direct supervisor.

After two status requests (Oct. 5, 2022 and Jan. 9, 2023), Deputy County Attorney Paul Correa responded Jan. 13 that a “rolling production of documents” would begin “in the next week or so” once staff reviewed the records which had been gathered in response to the public records request.

Several of the 57 pages finally released by Cochise County on Feb. 2, 2023 are duplicates of a screenshot of an Aug. 5 Telegram in which someone notes the elections department tabulation room “just went live. Lisa Marra and the Grey Hair woman just came in. No good morning Wave from Marra. I’m crushed.”

What apparently qualified as a threat, based on an email Marra received from a Maricopa County elections official, is a reply from another Telegram user that read “I’m glad these b*****s know we are watching them.”

The same day, Marra forwarded the screenshot to a top ranking official at the sheriff’s office. In that email, Marra wrote “I don’t report enough of these nor the phone call threats I get and I probably should.”

Yet the request for public records has never resulted in the disclosure of any such reports by Marra regarding phone calls.

Another document released by Cochise County was an email chain discussing a March 2022 controversy at the Arizona Legislature concerning a proposed bill impacting precinct committeemen. Marra emailed several elections officials on March 9, 2022, that she “got several emails and voice messages immediately” after a hearing on the matter.

She explained in her email that she contacted the local party chairs to put them on notice that her office “will not accept intimidation, harassments or threats” and will contact law enforcement if needed.

In that email to the chairs, Marra noted she “had numerous email and phone call threats and people screaming” at her about the issue. But there is no document released by Cochise County detailing any such phone call records nor emails which should be retrievable on the county’s server.

Another document released in response to the public records request is a copy of an April 20, 2022, letter to Marra from the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform seeking information on her experiences as an elections official.

The letter asks Marra to respond with various information including whether her staff has been the subject “of threats or physical or verbal attacks” related to the 2020 election. If so, she was asked by the Congressional committee to “describe each incident in detail.”

In response, Marra sent the committee a 10-page letter on May 4, 2022. She makes no reference to any specific threat incident nor any report to law enforcement, writing that she “cannot respond to specific details that may or may not have happened” in any county, including Cochise, “due to security and confidentiality concerns.”

Cochise County has provided no further response since that lone release on Feb. 2, even though the email cover letter noted it was simply “the first batch” of correspondence responsive to the public records request.