2020 Maricopa County Directs Use of Sharpie Pens

In your exploration of election-related anomalies, you are here:

• 2020 - List of Election-Related Assessed Anomalies
  • 2020 Maricopa County Directs Use of Sharpie Pens

Governance Gaps are reported on and compared to a standard so that you may visualize how poorly managed County services can have an adverse impact without any criminal wrongdoing. We chose the United States Government Accountability Office's (GAO) Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (also known as the Green Book) because it represents the ideal standard for governance practices since it is specifically written for government entities, not the business sector. Maricopa County has no obligation or commitments to adhere to any governance-related standards, including the Green Book. Regardless, the Green Book is a representation of what good governance looks like and deviations from that standard are worthy of consideration, not prosecution.

Backgound

While reading Maricopa County 2022 General Election Ballot-on-Demand Printer Investigation, there were mentions of the 2020 "Sharpiegate" incident during the General Elections. The 2022 introduced the Sharpiegate incident with the following:

"During the 2020 general election, however, on some ballots, the ink from the “Sharpie” pens provided at the vote centers bled through the paper."

Elsewhere in the 2022 report, the investigator discredit's the Sharpiegate incident as being unfounded. Alternate independent evaluations of the Sharpiegate incident were sought, given the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors was funding the report that discredited the incident.

Something more interesting than another report was found. Email from Maricopa County leadership directs the use of "Sharpie Markers" on Election day! Why?

The email was obtained from an internet-based news agency, The Gateway Pundit. The news article was disregarded as being biased. However, the actual Maricopa.gov email was raw data from which we could assess Maricopa County governance practices.

The Email

The email was sent by Kelly Dixon, Assistant Director, Recruitment and Training for the Elections Department.

The subject was Pens and Thank! (Not in that order!)

The email was sent on October 22, 2020, twelve days before the General Election on November 3, 2020.

What in this email?

The email begins with Kelly Dixon's thanks to Troubleshooters.

Then, the email content gets interesting.

Sharpie Pen Isssues known before Election Day

Emphasis (caps) was placed by the author of the email.

"Next, we've heard you and we know you've been hearing issues and concerns about Sharpie Markers. Starting tomorrow, 10/23, and through 11/2, we are asking that Clerks hand voters BALLPOINT PENS rather than markers. We NEED to use Markers on Election Day, but for now and through 11/2, hand voters a Ballpoint Pen. 

Spread the Word

Please message this to your Inspectors and ensure they cascade this change down to everyone on the Board.

Reasonable Interpretations

By way of background, Maricopa County voting centers had distributed black or blue ballpoint pens to voters prior to the 2020 General Election. The 2020 ballots included instruction for blue or black ink. The instructions did not specify ballpoint pens or prevent the use of Sharpie Markers.

Deviation: At the beginning of early in-person voting, voters were given Sharpie Markers by voter center personnel and told to use them when filling in the ballot. This was contrary to past practice. There was no documentation of an evaluation to address a problem ballpoint pens, which required the use Sharpie Markers as a solution.

People are Starting to Figure this Out!

As of October 22, 2020, the Maricopa County Leadership is alerting people of issues and concerns about the use of Sharpie Markers. The direction is given to stop using Sharpie Markers.

Stop using Sharpie Markers is excellent advice if there are known issues with their use that had been discovered and Sharpie Markers had never been used before. Plus, there was no requirement for their continued use. Excellent immediate action; stop in the face of uncertainty.

Unfortunately, the same Maricopa County leader that directed staff to stop using Sharpie Markers, disregarded a known issue. In the same email, the leader decided to insert a "known issue" on November 3, the Election Day, when in-person voting turnout is at its highest. Was the leader masking a known problem, waiting to reinsert a known problem into the voting process at a more opportune time? Why address a problem with a solution only to ignore the solution later.

Deviation: Maricopa County Leadership 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.

Deviation: Maricopa County Leadership 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.

County Leadership assures workers that they have enough ballpoint pens and Sharpie Markers to execute their plan.

Spread this Unethical Plan

The message says "Please message this to your Inspectors and ensure they cascade this change down to everyone on the Board." Interestingly, the target audience is "your Inspectors."

From the online Cambridge dictionary, one of the definitions of inspector is "someone whose job is to officially inspect something, for example, a factory or building, in order to check that everything is correct and legal. [Emphasis added by ACV]

Deviation: 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 ensure secure elections complied with the request to distributed Sharpie Marker to voters on Election Day, even though there were know issues with Sharpie Markers.

Deviation: The email 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.

Notable Observation: 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.

Investigation of 2022 Anomalies Revisits Sharpie Markers

The author of the Maricopa County 2022 General Election Ballot-on-Demand Printer Investigationasserted that the use of Sharpie Markers had no effect on the ballots.

The report states, "During the 2020 general election, however, on some ballots, the ink from the “Sharpie” pens provided at the vote centers bled through the paper."

• This report confirms that Sharpie Markers were capable of bleeding through the paper, which is likely associated with the "issues and concerns" noted by the Maricopa Leader
• The report usage of "on some ballots" suggest an occasional problem, leaving the possibility that at least two types of paper were used, which allowed the ink to bleed through on some, but not other ballots.
• If it wasn't the quality of the paper, were some ballots affected by the rate at which to voter filled in the ballot; slower movement of the pen caused the ink to bleed through. It's an interesting thought. Do you think they tested for that variable? Sharpies can be messy at times.

The report states, "Maricopa County preferred that voters use these pens because the ink dries quickly, as opposed to ballpoint ink, which takes more time to dry and thus can transfer onto the tabulator and cause the tabulator to reject ballots because it “reads” the transferred ink and detects it as a fault."

• Who made the decision to use Sharpie Markers?
• In the absence of a responsible individual, where is the documentation to demonstrate the use of Sharpie Markers was a planned change management activity to a problem with wet ink running through the tabulators?
• Long lines apparently resulted from time spent cleaning tabulators fouled from wet ink, which was the issue Maricopa County was trying to avoid. If long lines were a problem, where is investigation documented, which confirmed ballpoint pens were the cause of long lines at the Voting centers?
• If ballpoint pens were a valid problem, why are ballpoint pens being used today and Maricopa County has stopped distributing Sharpie Markers at the polling stations? 

Arizona Revised Statues

Arizona Revised Statue 16-449. Required test of equipment and programs; notice; procedures manual

A. Within the period of time before the election day prescribed by the secretary of state in the instructions and procedures manual adopted pursuant to section 16-452, the board of supervisors or other election officer in charge, or for an election involving state or federal candidates, the secretary of state, shall have the automatic tabulating equipment and programs tested to ascertain that the equipment and programs will correctly count the votes cast for all offices and on all measures.  Public notice of the time and place of the test shall be given at least forty-eight hours prior thereto by publication once in one or more daily or weekly newspapers published in the town, city or village using such equipment, if a newspaper is published therein, otherwise in a newspaper of general circulation therein.  The test shall be observed by at least two election inspectors, who shall not be of the same political party, and shall be open to representatives of the political parties, candidates, the press and the public. The test shall be conducted by processing a preaudited group of ballots so marked as to record a predetermined number of valid votes for each candidate and on each measure and shall include for each office one or more ballots that have votes in excess of the number allowed by law in order to test the ability of the automatic tabulating equipment and programs to reject such votes. .... If any error is detected, the cause therefor shall be ascertained and corrected and an errorless count shall be made before the automatic tabulating equipment and programs are approved.  A copy of a revised program shall be filed with the secretary of state within forty-eight hours after the revision is made. If the error was created by automatic tabulating equipment malfunction, a report shall be filed with the secretary of state within forty-eight hours after the correction is made, stating the cause and the corrective action taken.  The test shall be repeated immediately before the start of the official count of the ballots in the same manner as set forth above.  After the completion of the count, the programs used and the ballots shall be sealed, retained and disposed of as provided for paper ballots.

Question: Was testing performed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (or delegate) to verify the accuracy of ballots filled in with Sharpie Markers. If testing was performed on ballots using Sharpie Markers, were the test results as accurate or better than tests for ballots filled in with a ballpoint pen, and most importantly, was it documented specifically for Sharpie Markers, on all paper types, for all tabulators?

If testing had demonstrated the appropriate accuracy prior to the election, then test results would have most certainly been presented to the "Conspiracy Theorist" as evidence of their wrongful thinking.

Election Myths

This section illustrates how Maricopa County can sometimes mislead the public. This governance concern comes from a Maricopa County Website named Just the Facts: Election Information

Scroll down, to find

Select the "2020 ELECTION MYTHS" if you want the follow along. Scroll down to find the "Tabulation. Sharpies caused overvotes on Election Day ballots. FALSE

You can read their excuse explanation if interested. As noted earlier, they present a collection of facts to support their story. For someone familiar with Corrective Action Plans, it is concerning that they did not present any documentation from prior to the 2020 General Election to prove that Sharpie Markers were planned corrective actions to an identified problem. A con man can present facts, but omit unfavorable facts.

Maricopa County's website asserts "#Sharpiegate was already debunked in court."

Was it really debunked in court? Let's visit the case, Superior Court of Arizona for Maricopa County, CV 2020-014562. This link is to the Court's final decision. The case was brought by a single citizen (Plaintiff) against Adrian Fontes (Defendant). The case was dismissed.

According to the Judge's summary the Plaintiff's claim was as follows:

• the ballot casing and tabulation process did not occur with "perfect accuracy";
• the tabulation machines did not both "automatically and perfectly read and record" all the ballots and did not count the votes "perfectly";
• every tabulator was not a "perfectly accurate machine" and;
• all votes were not "counted via an automated and perfect process."

The Court was not addressing Sharpie Markers; the word "Sharpie" doesn't appear on the Court's summary of the Plaintiff's complaint.

How can Maricopa County refer to this court case as "debunking SharpieGate"?

The legal remedy sought by the citizen was to allow her vote again so it could be counted. The case was dismissed.

Notable Relationship of these Observations to Signature Verification

This email was distributed by the Assistant Director, Recruitment and Training for the Elections Department.

Separately, the Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigationaddressed allegations of issues with Signature Verification. The AZ AG's inspector found no deficiencies given that Level I Signature Verification training had been developed and delivered to 33 Maricopa County employees. The AZ AG's inspector's report states 40 temporary employees were hired four months after the Level I Signature Verification training had been implemented. These 40 temporary employees were apparently performing Level 1 Signature Verifications without any training.

Without a clear description of the organizational structure and responsibilities, it would seem that the Assistant Director, Recruitment and Training for the Elections Department would have had responsibility to the Signature Verification deficiencies as well as the direction of unethical practices to voting center personnel as discussed in this anomaly.

Potential Governance Gap(s):

• Principle 1 - Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Values
  • Attribute(s): 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.06, 1.07, 1.08, 1.10
• Principle 2 - Exercise Oversight Responsibility
  • Attribute(s): 2.01
• Principle 3 - Establish Structure, Responsibility, and Authority
  • Attribute(s): 3.01
• Principle 4 - Demonstrate Commitment to Competence
  • Attribute(s): 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.04, 4.05
• Principle 5 - Enforce Accountability
  • Attribute(s): 5.01, 5.02, 5.06
• Principle 6 - Define Objectives and Risk Tolerances
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 7 - Identify, Analyze, and Respond to Risks
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 8 - Assess Fraud, Improper Payment, and Information
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 9 - Identify, Analyze, and Respond to Change
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 10 - Design Control Activities
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 11 - Design General Control Activities over Information
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 12 - Implement Control Activities
  • Attribute(s): 12.01, 12.02, 12.04, 12.05
• Principle 13 - Use Quality Information
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 14 - Communicate Internally
  • Attribute(s): 14.01, 14.02, 14.04, 14.06
• Principle 15 - Communicate Externally
  • Attribute(s):
• Principle 16 - Perform Monitoring Activities
  • Attribute(s): 16.09, 16.10
• Principle 17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies
  • Attribute(s): 17.01, 17.02, 17.04, 17.05, 17.06