Elections mistakes in Pinal County have made headlines too many times in recent years, from a quarter of polling places running out of ballots in 2022’s primary to that year’s general election, when the county initially failed to count hundreds of ballots.
But now, heading into another election season, there’s a new person in charge, new staff, a new building and new processes and procedures meant to prevent a similar meltdown.
Jen Fifield covers elections for Votebeat in Arizona and she spoke more about it with The Show.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: We have to take a step back here first to 2022. Remind us how bad things have gotten for election officials in Pinal County. I mentioned a few of the major problems that made headlines, but you spoke with someone who really described it. I think the quote was “when things fell apart,” right?
JEN FIFIELD: Right. So they just had a lot of turnover and a lot of things happening prior to 2022, where they had a brand new elections director from out of state who was trying to figure out the number of correct ballots to order for polling places, how to correctly proof ballots, and he made mistakes. And if you make mistakes in elections, it affects everyone. So we had some problems, like you said, at the polls. They ended up firing him. They brought in their recorder as elections director.
Then when it came down to the general election, they had trouble tabulating and counting ballots. They got the count wrong. She didn’t say anything. She retired. We now have recorder Dana Lewis, who was at elections before this, and she, she was at elections. She was under the previous recorder. So she knows her stuff, and she’s trying to right the ship.
GILGER: You got a tour of this new elections building from this new county recorder. Tell us just how much things have changed.
FIFIELD: It’s dramatic. This is multiple times larger than their previous building that was split into two. They had to walk the ballots back and forth between early voting and tabulating. It was disorganized. They were stuffing ballots in hallways up to their their heads during the election.
And now this is just a large new, pristine building with everything organized in the way they want, a lot more space to grow and future years and a good grasp on what they need to do to make sure that we have a transparent and accurate election there.
GILGER: So so the building is not just for show. They need the space to do this, right? They have also changed a lot of staff, hired a lot of new people, which was necessary, It sounds like.
FIFIELD: Yeah. They brought in Matt Roberts, who was over at Maricopa County as their election spokesperson. Before this, he used to work at the Secretary of State’s Office. He’s a deputy elections director. They have not been able to find an elections director, which is a sticking point. One of the supervisors I talked to was concerned about that. But going in, they do have Lewis, they have Roberts, and they have confidence that they can make this work.
GILGER: Talk us talk about the new processes, new procedures in place that they think will be sort of safeguards against some of the mistakes that have happened in the past. What do those look like?
FIFIELD: Just on proofing ballots, they have a lot more people looking at the many, many ballot styles that go out to voters depending on where you live. They have a new ballot order, so they know how many ballots to order, they say. And then they’re also doing things like, trying to get it easier for poll workers to know how many ballots have been cast so they know how many they need to count that night, which is really crucial.
GILGER: So they’re facing their first kind of big test here coming up on July 30, when the primary elections take place. Is everyone in Pinal County confident that they’re ready that they can do this right?
FIFIELD: One of the supervisors is not. This is a supervisor who who’s been critical throughout all of the mistakes, saying that we just need to get this together, and he’s not confident that Lewis has done that. He is looking at the errors that still came up during the presidential primary election when trying to count ballots — everything was counted accurately, let me just say that. But there’s a lot of checks and balances that happen that he’s still not saying are up to, up to speed.
GILGER: Explain to us the issue over confusion over how many ballots need to be printed. This has been an issue in the past sort of on both sides, right? They’ve ordered too few and too many.
FIFIELD: Right. Well, if you think about the primary election, if you’re an independent voter, they don’t know if you’re going to vote with a Republican or Democrat ballot. They don’t know how many people are going to choose to use their mail ballot, how many people are going to go to the polls. That was one problem in 2022, a lot more people went to the polls. They were expecting a vote from home because of all the rumors about mail voting and how it was insecure. So they’ve taken into factor the political environment, where they think people are at, and they’ve tried to get this ballot order ready for this election.
GILGER: How much harder might things be in November, Jen? We’re expecting, first of all, a really long ballot, but also many more people. This will be a presidential election.
FIFIELD: This is the big show, yes. And like you said, the multiple page ballot, and they dealt with that in 2022 as well. Handling all that paper is a lot, is a big deal. So we’ll see how the primary goes. I’m really interested to see how it goes, and that’s going to be a signal for how well the November election goes. It’s just on a larger scale is what you’re seeing.
Everyone’s super passionate. Everyone is super emotional, yesterday about the opening. I was at the ribbon cutting yesterday, and I can say their heart is in this.
GILGER: That’s interesting. How high are the stakes here? Like, especially considering what’s happened in the past that we’ve talked about. But the political pressure that you mentioned the, the political landscape here, there will be so many eyes on elections here in Arizona. There could be potentially and probably will be very thin margins in many races, this long ballot. It sounds like there’s a lot at stake.
FIFIELD: There’s a lot at stake, and I think that that’s the case in every election. But now we have people that are picking apart every single part of the process and wanting it to be perfect. That’s what the story I wrote this week was about. We can’t have perfect elections, but we could try our best to make sure that everything is transparent and the results are as accurate as possible. And I think that’s what they’re going for.
It’s just so hard in this political climate where if you make a mistake, you’re you’re then getting threats and harassment. And in Pinal County more independents are moving in, which makes the results tighter. It’s just a lot of pressure.
GILGER: I want to ask you lastly about poll workers, about trying to get enough people because of what you said about threats and the political climate. Lots of people have quit these jobs. Lots of people don’t want to do them. Do they have enough staff? Are they concerned about the safety of these folks?
FIFIELD: Getting polling places and poll workers has been a real challenge in the last four years. Especially Pinal County is in a secure place for the primary, at least where they believe they have enough workers. They always need more. So do apply if you’re interested. If you’re living in Pinal or Maricopa, apply to serve for the day, or for the early voting period. But they feel like they’re in a good place going into this.
KJZZ’s The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ’s programming is the audio record.
