Will Election Reform In Arizona Prevent A 2024 Meltdown?
It’s been said that one cannot put a price on security. Or democracy. Or, for that matter, peace of mind.
Unfortunately for these timeworn platitudes, the election officials of Arizona live in the real world, and like the desert sun, public scrutiny is relentless, white-hot, and shows no mercy. Three Arizona counties have attracted considerable attention from news media and political operatives: Cochise County, Mohave County, and whether they wish to be newsworthy or not, Maricopa County. Each county has had their share of election-related drama; some played out in a court of law, others played out during tense county Board of Supervisors meetings. All parties involved agree that the current state of election administration policy and best practices are in need of reform, and that is where the consensus stops.
Election reform is a precarious undertaking under ideal conditions, and as election history has taught, resolving one problem can unintentionally create exponentially larger and more insurmountable problems in other areas, and in my experience, often come with a stultifying price tag.
Hand Counting Ballots
Cochise County and Mohave County are both considering eliminating optical scan ballot tabulators in favor of a switch to hand counting ballots. For background, official results from the 2022 midterms were thrown into jeopardy when the County Board of Supervisors in both of their respective counties clashed with election officials over the security of optical scan ballot tabulators and as a form of protest, delayed certification of the election. Cochise and Mohave were eventually ordered by the courts to certify results. The push for going over to all hand counting has intensified. Mohave County has released an impressively detailed report to support their case. In all fairness, Mohave County should be commended for their transparency. Unfortunately, the county’s estimation of requiring 330 additional workers to count ballots will cost $1.14 million to count 105,000 ballots. Simply put, that amount of money and personnel aren’t sustainable over the long-term for smaller or rural counties like Mohave and Cochise.
Speaking of personnel, Mohave County’s report brings up a subject that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later: keeping results under wraps until Election Day is over. Simply put, people talk, and the more non-election office personnel involved in the county, the higher the likelihood that Early Voting results will be leaked to either the press or the candidates, which has the potential to alter the final outcome of the election.
Unhandy logistics are the least of Cochise County’s and Mohave County’s election quandaries. For the past eight months, a particularly vexing legal question regarding who has legal authority to authorize hand-count-only election tallies, and whether the state Election Procedures Manual directly contradicts established Arizona election law.
Unlike Cochise and Mohave counties, Maricopa County doesn’t need to war-game a hypothetical hand counted ballot scenario. Everyone had a front-row seat to the nonstop drama and infighting thanks to the now infamous 2021 CyberNinjas audit. One of the lessons learned: Hand counting all 80 races on 2.1 million ballots is possible, but definitely not practical, scalable, efficient, or cost effective.
Security Printing Features On Ballots
Security printing has been all the rage in certain election circles for the past year or so, with enthusiastic endorsement of legislation from AZ state Representative and former Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem. In July 2023, the Cochise County Board of Supervisors applied for a state election security grant which would ostensibly fund both hand counting of elections and a proposed contract with two printing companies that purportedly specialize in government security printing contracts. One company, California-based Pro Vote Solutions, has extensive ballot printing and security feature printing experience. The other firm, Authentix, has security printing experience in printing excise tax stamps and identity documents overseas, but it is unclear whether the Texas-based firm has proven experience printing a high volume of ballots for a U.S. election.
The OSET Institute analyzed both the Arizona legislation and the RFPs submitted by Pro Vote Solutions and Authentix. In our view, security printing has a use case in elections, provided that it is done in accordance with Arizona election statutes, and the security features don’t interfere with determining a voter’s choices on their ballot. Not every security feature is conducive to ballot printing and tabulation. Some are, candidly, overkill. Watermarks and intricately-patterned guillochè or intaglio printing could be added during the paper making process, but foil holograms must be added using a separate stamping machine.
Thermal printing processes, such as a feature on the ballot that changes color when touched, require adjustments to the process for those features to properly function when transported or stored in non-climate controlled conditions in the extreme desert heat of Arizona. UV sensitive security features are a reasonably cost effective compromise; however, it’s hard to miss the irony of a county getting rid of proprietary digital scanners in favor of hand counting, only to use ballots with security features, that in order to properly authenticate, require the use of (wait for it) a proprietary digital scanner. 🤔
Then there is the other consideration for security printed ballots: Access control. If a box or roll of security paper goes missing, there’s a possibility for fraudulent ballots to be created. If a security printing vendor has a data breach, the trade secrets for that printing process could be stolen and sold to the highest bidder. Election warehouses can be broken into, boxes of ballots can go missing. With both hand counting and security printing, the chain-of-custody, from paper making to tallying and auditing every last ballot, becomes everybody’s responsibility to maintain and be held accountable for.
Can Arizona Avoid a 2024 Election Meltdown?
That leads us to the question of this posting. To be honest, this is difficult to answer, since the term “election meltdown” is highly subjective. An election may go smoothly, efficiently, and with relatively few glitches, and a candidate or political party may still have something that they object to and effort too take it to the courts. If their grievance meets the conditions to file a challenge, that is their right to do so.
Perhaps, then the question to ask is:
“How do we define a successfully conducted election, and how do these proposed reforms support election administrators in performing their fiduciary duty to taxpayers, and ensuring free and fair elections for voters and candidates running for office?”
In our humble opinion, successful elections prioritize four (4) elements:
Verifiable chain of custody;
Accurate tabulation of results;
Secure election management and voting system software and hardware; plus
Full transparency…
…in all steps of the election process.
So, can hand-counting and security-printed ballots help facilitate successful, “meltdown-free” elections? 🤔 Well, “Query” as they often say in major eastern academic institutions; both elements are dependent on:
an understanding of the risks and rewards;
a careful implementation of new changes; and above all,
managing the expectations of the public.
Our advice? Since everyone seems convinced they have the answer, we advise: strap-in; hold-on; and stay tuned for a wild ride in 2024. 🤓
