A new report obtained by The Arizona Sun Times found that more than 18,000 absentee ballots counted in the 2022 election in Pima County alone had severely lacking or no chain-of-custody paperwork, meaning there is an inadequate record of the whereabouts or origins of the Tucson-area ballots.
Coincidentally in the same election cycle, Katie Hobbs edged out Kari Lake for the Governor’s office by just 17,117 votes.
After receiving and analyzing a trove of public records, two independent election integrity groups – The Pima Integrity Project (PIP) and CONELRAD Group – developed a study looking at the county’s handing of absentee ballots, specifically with regards to:
(1) Transferring ballots from the Pima County Recorder’s warehouse to the early voting sites;
(2) Transferring the drop-off ballots from the early voting sites to the ballot processing center;
(3) Transferring in-person ballots from the early voting sites to the ballot processing center; and,
(4) The delivery of ballots from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to the ballot processing center.
The administration of elections and the procedures county and state officials must follow are found in the state’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM). The statute that addresses the EPM, A.R.S. 16-452(C), states that “A person who violates any rule adopted pursuant to this section is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor.”
Jack Dona, one of the founding members of CONELRAD Group, told The Sun Times that his concern was that nothing would be done legally about the findings. “Until the judicial system definitively levies punishment and consequences for, at the least what we deem to be incompetent malfeasance and intentional acts of maladministration regarding the voting systems in the state, these issues will likely arise again,” he said.
Tim Laux of PIP added, “For several years there have been multiple accusations over cheating in Pima County. We now have receipts showing the likely possibility of this, in particular the mail-in ballots.”
Laux told The Sun Times that he estimated “8,117 mail-in ballots and all 10,032 in-person voted ballots” lacked chain of custody, since none of the ballot transfer forms contained two courier signatures as required by law, and many of those were plagued with other problems including no signatures at all. Laux reviewed 140 chain-of-custody forms from in-person early voting, and 163 forms from mail-in ballots dropped off.
The report expressed concern that ballot drop-off boxes aren’t staffed as required by law. The EPM provides, “An unstaffed drop-box placed inside a building shall be secured in a manner that will prevent unauthorized removal.” (page 71)
The report said Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly “repeatedly states that all of the ballot boxes are ‘staffed,’” but the public records the groups requested revealed that “ballot boxes remain at the vote locations overnight and in some cases, more than 2 or 3 days. Maintenance crews and janitorial staff have access to the locations where ballot boxes are stored overnight.”
The report said, “There is no security of the ballots during those times.” The groups worried that “there is nothing stopping nefarious activity, i.e., stuffing ballot boxes.” Instead, they asserted that “Ballot boxes should be delivered at the END of each voting day to the Ballot Processing Center.”
Regarding the first area of concern, the report observed, “Not a single chain of custody document shows counts of blank ballot stock.” The report labeled this “serious,” considering the county “uses homegrown software that is not certified at early voting sites.” They warned, “The potential to print ballots without a valid voter check-in is possible.”
The report said there was also no count of the ballot stock — blank paper used to print ballots — that was not used, or how and where it was transferred back to another location and the count when received there. Instead, the ballot transfer forms left most of the required fields blank.
