1.03

Principle 1 - Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Values

Attribute: 1.03: The oversight body and management lead by an example that demonstrates the organization's values, philosophy, and operating style. The oversight body and management set the tone at the top and throughout the organization by their example, which is fundamental to an effective internal control system. In larger entities, the various layers of management in the organizational structure may also set the "tone in the middle." Although it is the oversight body and management's responsibility to set the tone at the top, other personnel throughout the entity play an important role in supporting the tone that permeates the organizational culture.

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Jamie's Story

November 2022: Mid-term Election

Katie Hobbs was serving as the Arizona Secretary of State while running for Arizona Governor during the 2022 Mid-term elections. Katie was serving an oversight role for all Arizona county elections as the Arizona Secretary of State. Relevant to this Green Book Attribute 1.02, she refused to recuse herself from the oversight role, from which ethical questions arose. She was setting the tone at the top, complying with the law was important, but ethics, not so much. This sends a signal to subordinates; they may also demonstrate unethical behavior as long as it is legally compliant.

May 15, 2025: Let’s Play Hot Potato

A Maricopa County employee replied to one of Jamie's inquiries with “We have no statutory responsibility to answer your questions.” This comment would be expected from a frontline employee given that Maricopa County leadership and legal team included the following in their March 12, 2026: Maricopa County Defense Briefing, "Defendants have no duty to explain." Contrary to Green Book Attribute 1.02, Maricopa County culture appears to be aligned from top to bottom. However, they are aligned to an arrogant attitude, representing poor governance and disrespect towards its citizens.

March 12, 2026: Maricopa County Defense Briefing

At issue, is the Maricopa's County presentation of the concept that they could produce after the fact documentation but are under no statutory obligation to do so. It is presumed that Maricopa County management concurred with this belief, assuming they provided oversight to the legal team's claims made in the Defense brief. In my work experience, after the fact creation of documentation would have been considered unethical or illegal. Contrary to the Green Book, Maricopa County management appears to accept the position that documents can be produced after the fact based on the information contained within the Defense Brief. The Legal team claimed Maricopa County could create documentation after the fact but are not obligated to do so. 

June 8, 2026: Arizona State Ombudsman Replies

Maricopa County's Ombudsman are ethically deficient to Arizona State Ombudsman. Maricopa County has job positions with Ombudsman in the title. However, Maricopa County Ombudsmen 1) are not trained as Ombudsman, 2) are not operating within an internationally recognized process for Ombudsman, and do not have their independence legally established by statute or county ordinance. Senior leadership apparently condones the practice of using a dictionary definition of Ombudsman as the criterion for using Ombudsman in a Job Title. A model program is available at the State level, which is being ignored.

Election Anomalies

Arizona Senate Allegations

As already noted in Green Book Attribute 1.01 and 1.02, Arizona Senate allegations arose from a failure to recognize the Arizona Senate's Oversight Role. These allegations were investigated and reported on by the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation. The elected officials were considered as a possible oversight entity for MC operations. In this case, MC Elected Officials and MC leadership were apparently aligned with the position that the Arizona Senate was not entitled to perform oversight. Hence, the oversight and management were both demonstrating a lack of integrity and unethical behavior in the eyes of the public because of their lack of transparency. This potential deviation from the Green Book standard applies to the following Arizona Senate Allegations:

This potential deviation from the Green Book standard applies to the following Arizona Senate Allegations:

• Allegation #1 Signature Verifciaton
• Allegation #2, Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020)
• Allegation #3, Maricopa Election Management Server (2020)

All of the following are sub-allegations of Allegation #3:

• MC EMS 2020 - Election Management System Database Purged
• MC EMS 2020 - Election Files Deleted
• MC EMS 2020 - Corrupt Ballot Images
• MC EMS 2020 - Missing Ballot Images
• MC EMS 2020 - Failure to Follow Basic Cyber Security Practices
• MC EMS 2020 - Subpoenaed Equipment Not Yet Provided
• MC EMS 2020 - Anonymous Logins
• MC EMS 2020 - Dual Boot System Discovered
• MC EMS 2020 - Operating System Logs Not Preserved
• MC EMS 2020 - Internet Connections to the EMS

• Allegation #4, Maricopa County Withholding Audit Data (2020)
  • The uncooperative tone is clearly displayed by the MCBOS and MCBOS member Bill Gates.
• Allegation #5, Pima County Embedded 35,000 Votes (2020)
• Allegation #6, Unknown Published Election Fraud Flyer (2020)

Maricopa County Directs the Use of Sharpie Pens

This Green Book Attribute, 1.03, emphasizes the importance of management behaviors that encourage integrity and ethics, using the phase "Tone at the Top." In this case, an Assistant Director appears to be encouraging the use of Sharpie Markers on Election Day, knowing there are issues and concerns with Sharpies. Contrary to this attribute, the following unethical practices were revealed by Maricopa County:

• Maricopa County Leader directed the use of Sharpie Markers on Election Day contrary to their acknowledgement of issues arising from the use of Sharpie Markers, which had occurred prior to October 22, 2020. Maricopa County Leader asked personnel to stop using Sharpie Markers and use Ballpoint Pens until the Election Day in an apparent attempt to prevent premature escalation of the issue until after the election.
• Inspectors were the target audience of this email message. The inspectors were informed of issues and concerns with Sharpie Markers. Yet, the email asked inspectors to intentionally distribute Sharpie Pens on Election Day after issues and concerns with the use of Sharpie Pens had been identified. The very people (i.e., inspectors) that should have been ensuring secure elections apparently complied with the request to distributed Sharpie Marker to voters on Election Day, even though there were know issues with Sharpie Markers. The Maricopa County Leader seeks to ensure everyone is passing out Sharpie Markers contrary to the ballot instructions. Everyone is alerted to issues and concerns with the Sharpie Markers, but apparently no one questioned their extensive use on Election Day. This email message was delivered by the Elections Department Assistant Director for Recruitment and Training. In this case, numerous temporary workers are hired for a short period of time, for the single purpose of supporting an election. The Assistant Director for Recruitment and Training would have been more influential to newly hired temporary workers. It seems odd that a staff management position (i.e., Training) would be communicating a line management decision, or what should be a line management decision.
• An investigation into 2022 Mid-term election anomalies confirmed that Sharpie Markers bled through some ballots, which would be consistent with the reports of "issues and concerns" identified with the use of Sharpie Markers before October 22, 2020.
• As Maricopa County tells the story, they were concerned about long lines at voting centers. Their story goes on to attribute ballot tabulator fouling as the cause of long lines; delays and long lines occurred when voting stopped to clean the tabulators. They attributed fouling of the ballot tabulator to the wet ink from ballpoint pens being transferred to the tabulator. Their solution was to distribute Sharpie Markers at the Voting Centers to the voters; Sharpie ink apparently dries faster than ballpoint pen ink. The problem with their story is that it sounds more like an excuse than a plan. If any part of their story had been documented, which showed a thoughtful investigation, then most of the public's suspicions of foul play even would have been resolved, even if the corrective action to use Sharpie Markers was wrong.