Maricopa County taxpayers have been billed more than $91,000 so far to have former Justice Ruth McGregor investigate why several Ballot of Demand (BOD) printers performed inadequately on Election Day last November. But two of the invoices contained math errors which led to an overbilling of $1,055.
Mark Spencer, Southwest Projects Coordinator for Judicial Watch, noted various errors, the most serious involving McGregor’s original bill to the county for $55,901 when her 132.75 hours only added up to $55,091.
In addition, Sandra Thomason submitted an invoice for 105.5 hours at a total of $26,620. However, her invoice noted an hourly charge of $250, which would equal $26,375.
A revised invoice for McGregor was released to Spencer on Monday. It is unknown as of press time whether McGregor and Thomason were initially paid based on their incorrect invoices or if someone from Maricopa County did the math before cutting the checks.
Questions and concerns continue to be raised about aspects of McGregor’s investigation. Several detailed follow-up questions were submitted to Maricopa County by Arizona Daily Independent, but no answers will be forthcoming, according to a high ranking member of the MCAO.
“The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office clearly outlined the scope of the review by Justice McGregor in the attached letter,” MCAO Chief of Staff Jennifer Liewer responded Monday. “Her subsequent report addressed the questions posed in the letter. The County Attorney’s Office’s only role in the review was to ensure Justice McGregor had access to staff and resources that she determined were necessary. The report stands as our response to your comments and questions below.”
In late November, the Maricopa County Elections Department issued an undated report addressing several Election Day problems, including vote center wait times, the voter check-out process, and ballot box reconciliation.
The report also provided various information about the Oki B432 BOD printer and tabulation problems which resulted in thousands of ballots to be placed in Door 3
of the tabulator to be counted later at the main Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC).
McGregor was contracted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell in early January to provide an independent review of some of the problems, including why dozens of the Oki printers provided ballots that were printed too lightly to be tabulated by onsite equipment.
The other questions for McGregor’s team involved why the printer problems occurred on Nov. 8 but not on Aug. 3 during the primary election, and how Maricopa County can prevent a repeat of the problem.
In an April 10 report, McGregor confirmed that technical personnel from Maricopa County and Runbeck responded to 71 of 223 vote centers to change BOD printer settings even though some of those vote centers reported more problems than others.
The investigation also revealed that poor fusing of the toner onto the ballot paper was the source of the misprints caused by an inability of the fuser to maintain optimum fusing temperature.
There were no problems reported with the Oki printers in prior Maricopa County elections when 19- and 20-inch ballot paper of an 80 pound weight was utilized, according to the report.
“Based on our tests, and for the reasons described in this report, we concluded that the combined effect of using 100-pound ballot paper and a 20-inch ballot during the 2022 general election was to require that the Oki B432 printers perform at the extreme edge of their capability, a level that could not be reliably sustained by a substantial number of printers,” the report notes.
McGregor’s team recommended several alternative approaches which county elections officials can utilize in the future to minimize the likelihood of a similar failure.
One alternative approach is to conduct “more robust stress testing” designed to mimic how the BOD printers are actually used in the field. Another approach is to return to using 80-pound paper for ballots, even if 20 inches long.
Still another approach is to eliminate the use of on-site tabulators and do what some Arizona counties do – transport all ballots cast at vote centers to the county’s central elections office for tabulation on higher powered machines.
McGregor’s team also noted there is yet another option – put up with the printer issues and vote center tabulation problems while undertaking a voter education effort to get voters to accept that misprinted ballots may occur and what how those ballots will be tabulated.
Included in the invoices already received by Maricopa County is one for $5,771 from Doug Meyer, owner of Meyer Enterprises, Inc., which does business as CTS Office Supply in Cottonwood. Meyer’s company has experience working with the same Oki brand printers which were problematic in Maricopa County.
There was also an invoice for $2,875 from Lynn Constabile, who resigned in July 2022 after serving as Yavapai County’s elections director for 18 years. Constabile is now affiliated as an elections engagement manager for U.S. Digital Response.
The final cost of McGregor’s investigation for Maricopa County is not yet known, as no invoice has been released as of press time for another member of her team, Neal Kelly.
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