17.02

Monitoring

Principle 17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies

Attribute 17.02 - Personnel report internal control issues through established reporting lines to the appropriate internal and external parties on a timely basis to enable the entity to promptly evaluate those issues and complete corrective action to remediate issues that rise to the level of internal control deficiencies.

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Jamie's Story

May 15, 2025: Let’s Play Hot Potato

Excluding the Procurement Services department, Maricopa County employees did not respond to Jamie's PRR. Her inquiries were related to trying to determine if any of the election anomalies had been investigated and corrective actions plans implemented to prevent a recurrence of these issues. Given that no documents were provided, it's reasonable to conclude there was no meaningful evaluation, contrary to Attribute 17.02.

June 25, 2025: Runbeck Contract Delivered

Some of the contract changes were routine, while others were apparently needed to address an issue based on the scope. Those changes that were significant in scope lack the key aspects of Corrective Action Plans, identification, evaluation and corrective action.

June 8, 2026: Arizona State Ombudsman Replies

Ombudsman investigations could be utilized as a separate evaluation per this Attribute, 16.06 However, Maricopa County's Ombudsman program is deficient to Arizona Ombudsman Citizens' Aide (AZOCA) agency. Maricopa County has job positions with Ombudsman in the title. However, Maricopa County Ombudsmen do not have the organizational independence to effectively perform their expected duties of an Ombudsman as defined by internationally recognized organizations for Ombudsmen programs. Maricopa County's ability to resolve problems with internal controls is hindered by the absence of independent reporting of problems.

Election Anomalies

Arizona Senate Allegations

Arizona Senate allegations arose from MC's failure to recognize the Arizona Senates Oversight Role. These allegations were investigated and reported on by the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation. These allegations would not have occurred had MC leadership taken action to identify, investigate and remediate internal control issues associated with the 2020 General Election. This applies to the following allegations.

• Maricopa Election Management Server (2020)
  • 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 - Anonymous Logins
  • MC EMS 2020 - Dual Boot System Discovered
  • MC EMS 2020 - Operating System Logs Not Preserved

Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020)

Governance issues identified from Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation of Arizona Senate allegations of Maricopa County Election Department - Drop Box Collections issues. Citizens identified problems with the chain of custody documentation soon after the 2020 General Election. However, MC management did not seek to understand the issue. Intervention by the AZ AG's inspector was necessary to formally acknowledge the allegations and identify procedure violations as the cause. See the heading Deviation: Allegations Confirmed from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage for additional details. Supporting information is available from the following:

• See the heading Deviation: Missing Entries on Election Forms from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage.
• See the heading Deviation: Missing Ballot Counts from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage.
• See the heading Deviation: Used Email instead of EVBTS Forms from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage.
• See the heading Deviation: Unfulfilled Party Representation Requirements for Couriers from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage.

Unfortunately, the AZ AG's inspector's report did not identify any corrective actions to the confirmed allegations. See the heading Noteworthy: Consequences Unknown from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage for details.

Maricopa County Directs the Use of Sharpie Pens

The Assistant Director of Recruitment and Training's October 22, 2020 email acknowledged problems with Sharpie Markers by stating, "we've heard you and we know you've been hearing issues and concerns about Sharpie Markers." The Assistant Director took immediate action to remediate the concern by suspending the practice of handing out Sharpie Markers to in-person early voters on October 22 after issues were identified. Unfortunately, the subsequent direction by the Assistant Director of Recruitment and Training exacerbated the issues and concerns, negating the remediation action. The Assistant Director directed that Sharpie Markers be handed to in-person voters on Election Day, which is significant because there were a larger number of in-person voters on Election Day, so the Sharpie Markers were used more often by the voters.

• 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.