1.02

Control Environment

Principle 1: Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Values

Tone at the Top

Attribute 1.02: The oversight body and management demonstrate the importance of integrity and ethical values through their directives, attitudes, and behavior.

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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. There were no legal restrictions to prevent her from remaining in the oversight role. This was an ethical question directed at the one person that was solely responsible for overseeing her own election.

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.

June 25, 2025: Runbeck Contract Delivered

The absence of documentation justifying the need for changes to the Runbeck contract and inconsistent approval signatures may have been ethical issues. It's difficult to ascertain given the absence of documentation. These are integrity lapses given that justification for change and approval signatures are expected in business contracts.

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.

June 9, 2026: Maricopa County Ombudsman Replies

The Maricopa County Ombudsman was not fulfilling the expected Ombudsman to listen to citizen issues and conduct an independent investigation accordingly. In this case, the Ombudsman read remail, referred the request to another department and informed Jamie of the action she had taken. Ethically, this isn't the expected response from an Ombudsman operating within the government sector.

Election Anomalies

Arizona Senate Allegations

This Green Book Attribute, 1.02, implies cooperation is needed between management and oversight. Unfortunately, MC appears to believe they are not accountable to any entity, certainly not the public and not the Arizona Legislature.

Potential governance gaps were identified by the Assessment Team from the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation of Arizona Senate allegations. This Green Book attribute is relevant to all of the allegations submitted by the Arizona Senate since MC Elected Officials and MC leadership failed to recognize the importance of the Arizona Senate's oversight role. Investigative information was withheld by MC Elected Officials and MC Leadership, which ultimately lead to the Arizona Senate formally filing their allegations with the Arizona Attorney General. The public perceives MC leadership as lacking integrity and being unethical when they withhold information from the public and oversight entities, such as the Arizona Senate.

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, 1.02, emphasizes the importance of integrity and ethics. 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.