Just days after the Pinal County Board of Supervisors (BOS) put most of its election duties under the authority of the county recorder, the public is learning more how those supervisors were deprived for weeks of accurate information about the county’s botched tabulation of 2022 General Election ballots.
County Recorder Dana Lewis will take on the bulk of Pinal County’s election administration following the supervisors’ July 5 vote. The arrangement will be finalized in a formal Memorandum of Understanding to be drafted by the Pinal County Attorney’s Office.
The vote was followed the next week by the release of public records that show who in Pinal County knew what -and who was initially kept in the dark- about the fact hundreds of ballots were not properly tabulated prior to the supervisors voting last November to canvass the election results.
Arizona Daily Independent has put together a partial timeline of events based on those records as well as recordings of several meetings of the Pinal County BOS.
August 2022 – Following a disastrous 2022 Primary Election and the departure of Pinal County’s then-Elections Director, County Recorder Virginia Ross stepped down from her elected position and entered into a contract that paid her $175,000 to serve as the county’s elections director for just four months.
At the time, Board Chairman Jeffrey McClure noted it is “vital that we restore trust with Pinal County voters, and I can assure the community that there is no better leader to take control of our Elections Department than Virginia Ross.”
Nov. 8, 2022 – 2022 General Election
Nov. 9, 2022 –McClure congratulates the county’s election team and says things were “light years” better than in August. Similarly, Supervisor Mike Goodman said he was “pretty confident that we have put back in the confidence of our voters here in Pinal County.”
Nov. 16 – First public discussion about a few dozen longtime voters forced to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day. Many of those voters allege election workers failed to provide accurate information that would have allowed their ballots to be counted by going to a different polling location.
Nov. 21 – The Pinal County Board of Supervisors meets to canvass, or formally accept, the election results put forth by Ross. County Attorney Kent Volkmer tells the BOS of a problem on Nov. 8 that delayed about 100 voters from checking in at their polling places.
“I can tell you that I am incredibly confident, as confident as I could possibly be in that in the numbers that are being provided to this board,” Volkmer said.
Supervisor Jeff Serdy asks Volkmer about rumors of other problems that may impact the canvass results. The question did not prompt Volkmer to suggest a delay in canvassing, which did not have to be done until Nov. 28.
Instead, Volkmer told the supervisors his office would “provide some after-action reports” if anyone came up with specific concerns later on.
Ross, who received a $25,000 bonus upon the canvass vote, told supervisors at the time “I stand by the results of the canvas and all of the reports that are attached to the canvas that they are the correct and true reports of the election and the tabulation and ask that you approve as presented.”
The BOS votes to canvass the results and send the information to Katie Hobbs, the then-Arizona Secretary of State.
Nov. 28 – Ross is finished with her contract, leading the way for Geraldine Roll to be named as incoming Elections Director. Roll, who was with the county attorney’s office, discovers the problem with Election Day voter sign-in was more serious than first described to the BOS on Nov. 21.
Nov. 30 – Volkmer learns of Roll’s discovery.
Dec. 1 – The Pinal County Elections Department under Roll’s supervision opens some boxes of ballots in an attempt to understand discrepancies with vote counts and ballot counts.
Volkmer would later say this was the day an “in-depth investigation” was initiated by a small group of county officials along with a representative of ES&S, the company that provides Pinal County’s machine ballot tabulators.
Dec. 5 – Secretary of State (SOS) Hobbs certifies the statewide canvass. She immediately obtains a court order for recount of three races, including Attorney General which showed Kris Mayes only 511 votes ahead of Abe Hamadeh.
Dec. 6 – The SOS recertifies Pinal County’s three tabulation machines in advance of the statewide recount. The counties have until Dec. 22 to resubmit their vote counts to the SOS.
Dec. 7 – Pinal County started its recount. Volkmer tells supervisors there is a “gag order” preventing any information from being released except daily counts sent directly to the SOS.
Also on Dec. 7, Volkmer, Roll, and others take part in a phone call with Hobbs’ office to report obvious ballot tabulation discrepancies compared to the Nov. 21 canvass.
Dec. 9 – Hamadeh along with Republican National Committee and two Mohave County voters file a formal election challenge against Mayes. All 15 counties are also named as defendants.
Dec. 14 – Volkmer advises supervisors that the county’s recount is ongoing, using the two tabulation machines “that worked.”
Dec. 20 – Roll is not confident in the recount totals so with Volkmer’s agreement she begins a second recount of Election Day ballots.
“We need to make darn sure, whatever our numbers are, are correct that we give to the Secretary of State’s office on the 22nd,” Volkmer would later explain.
Dec. 20 – Attorneys for Hobbs secure an order from the Maricopa County judge assigned to the recount case to delay the results hearing until Dec. 29.
Dec. 21 – Roll sends a “recount discrepancy report” to Hobbs’ office explaining why the total number of ballots cast on Pinal County’s Nov. 21 canvass is several hundred less than the total shown on the recount report.
Roll’s report specifically notes the county’s canvass “was filed prior to taking an adequate opportunity to investigate any possible anomalies we could discern from polling place returns.”
Neither the report nor its existence were made known to Hamadeh or the Mohave County judge preparing for the evidentiary trial in the Attorney General election challenge.
Dec. 23 – Mohave County Judge Lee Jantzen conducts a three-hour trial which ends with the judge ruling Hamadeh did not provide sufficient evidence of his claims. Those claims included hundreds of uncounted ballots and ballots recorded in the attorney general race as an undervote, meaning the machine did not “read” any vote for Hamadeh or Mayes on a ballot.
Volkmer would later tell the BOS he believed a gag order issued by the recount judge meant no one could reveal anything until the Dec. 29 results hearing.
“It is very clear the intent is when you read the entirety of the order, it’s a five-page order, it is absolute radio silence. You don’t discuss anything,” Volkmer said Jan. 4.
Dec. 29 – Roll issues a supplement to her Dec. 21 report, explaining that a “human error” caused another 63 ballots to not be tabulated correctly on Election Day. But they are included in Pinal County’s final recount tabulation.
Official results of the statewide recount are approved by a Maricopa County judge, providing the first public confirmation of serious problems with Pinal County’s general election results. Hamadeh cuts Mayes’ margin to only 280 votes, with a significant number of those votes coming from Pinal County.
Volkmer has pushed back on suggestions that the county should try to get the bonus back from Ross.
Jan. 3, 2023 – Hamadeh files a motion for a new trial, based in part on the lack of candor by Hobbs’ staff and attorneys during the Dec. 23 proceeding about the problems in Pinal County.
Jan. 4 – Volkmer tells the Pinal County BOS it is “categorically false” that his office knew of the tabulation errors before the Nov. 21 canvass. He goes on to provide the supervisors their first detailed explanation of what occurred and when, adding it “was not flattering to Pinal County.”
Volkmer stood by his assertion that the supervisors had “no ability” to change or modify the report Ross presented to them for the Nov. 21 canvass meeting. But legal experts say the county attorney left out a key truth – that the supervisors had one extra week before the canvass deadline and therefore could have tabled the canvass agenda.
This would have provided Ross time to reconfirm her report and catch the significant errors. It also would have ensured the supervisors canvassed the correct vote totals and that every lawful vote cast in Pinal County was counted.
June 27 – Roll abruptly quits as elections director following a BOS meeting. She has since returned to the county attorney’s office.
July 5 – County Recorder Dana Lewis addressed the board of supervisors about elections issues. She noted Pinal County is “a junction where we have a moral and legal obligation to ensure the future elections are safe, secure, transparent, and moving in the direction of progress. Reinventing the wheel and learning on the fly is not acceptable and will not work.”
One of her responsibilities will be to hire a new elections director, the forth since 2022.