Grand Canyon Times

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sent out a letter to Mohave County Board of Supervisors urging them not to vote for the hand counting of ballots in the 2024 election. The letter was issued due to concerns over potential legal consequences associated with manual ballot counting.

Before delving into the details, it is important to note that this isn't Mohave County's first brush with such a decision. In the second vote since August, Mohave County decided 3-2 against manually counting votes that were previously suggested to be counted by hand instead of using computer tabulation. Just before the vote, Mayes sent a letter to the board, warning of potential legal consequences if the county opted to manually count the ballots in the upcoming 2024 election, according to AZ Mirror.

Moving on from the general overview, let's take a look at Mayes' exact words as they lend further insight into her stance on this matter. "I understand that you will be voting tomorrow on whether to direct the Mohave County Elections Department to count the ballots for the 2024 elections by hand, rather than automatic tabulating equipment," wrote Mayes in the letter, according to the Office of the Arizona Attorney General. "Before you take that vote, I want to make sure you know that a 'yes' vote would direct your Elections Department to violate the law. As Arizona’s chief law enforcement officer, I have an obligation to warn you that the legal consequences would be serious."

With Mayes' warnings laid out explicitly, it is relevant now to consider why these concerns around election integrity are cropping up. Republican lawmakers in the state have been concerned about election integrity in recent years due to malfunctioning tabulation machines. Numerous allegations of a flawed election have arisen since the November 2022 results, with both Abe Hamadeh and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake prominently raising concerns. Hamadeh, the former Republican candidate for the attorney general position, narrowly lost to Kris Mayes by a margin of just 280 votes, according to Arizona Daily Independent.

Zooming in further, let's examine a specific incident that fueled these doubts about election integrity. On election day in Maricopa County, nearly 20% of the voting locations, approximately one in four, encountered glitches. These malfunctions affected multiple ballot tabulator machines and had an impact on a total of 17,000 ballots in the county. As a result, concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the election process surfaced, leading to widespread accusations of fraud. These accusations were made not only by Lake but also by many others, according to the New York Times.

Now that we've explored some of the specifics behind this controversy surrounding manual vote counting versus automated systems let's hear from another voice from within Arizona's political sphere. "You fight election integrity with 'threat of arrest'," said Arizona Rep. John Gillette, according to a post on the X platform. "Talk about left-wing bullying. The last AZAG and as of yesterday in GA, a Federal Court allows it. It would appear you like not counting legal votes and using unsecured machines with CCP parts."