The Arizona Senate’s effort to do its own check on the number of ballots cast in Maricopa County’s 2020 general election is not expected to begin until Wednesday in the latest turn for an unprecedented and controversial audit that has dragged on for 12 weeks.
And the recount — which will be the third tally of the ballots — got a new element of drama on Tuesday after Senate President Karen Fann told a radio show host that the companies hired by the Legislature to review the election results had come up with a different number of ballots than Maricopa County officials.
“They haven’t released a number yet. However, we do know those numbers do not match with Maricopa County at this point,” Fann, R-Prescott, told Mike Broomhead on his KTAR program.
Fann said the Senate will count the number of ballots, not how each ballot was voted, to again check how many were cast.
If the third tally produces yet another number, that is likely to only heighten criticism of a process many election officials have maintained is unreliable and open to error.
Outside observers have raised concerns that the processes used by the Senate’s contractors depart entirely from the state’s existing procedures for auditing election results by hand, and critics have questioned the qualifications of the companies.
Observers from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office reported in June, for example, that they witnessed a table of workers count a stack of ballots. The workers counted 24 ballots while another count had tallied 25 ballots.
“In a credible audit, the batch would have been recounted. Instead, the table manager said she thought she found the 25th ballot stuck to another ballot and proceeded without recounting the batch,” the observers reported.
While counting was supposed to begin Tuesday, spokesman Randy Pullen said officials were still setting up equipment and running tests, which pushed the start of the effort to Wednesday.
That coincides with the last day of the Senate’s extended lease on part of the state fairgrounds in Phoenix, where it has stored voters’ 2.1 million ballots.
The Senate moved into an exhibition building at the site earlier this month after using the Veterans Memorial Coliseum since late April but had agreed to vacate the premises entirely by 5 p.m. on July 14.
The Senate purchased counting machines that will run at a rate of about nine minutes per box of ballots. There are 1,681 boxes, although they don't all hold identical numbers of ballots.
Pullen said the Senate was working on an extension of about two weeks.
The Senate did not file an application to use any of the space, overseen by a state board headed by the former chairman of the state Republican Party, but it agreed to pay the actual costs of utilities for the spaces it was using.
Fairgrounds officials said they have not yet billed the Senate for any of its costs.
