2.01

Control Environment

Principle 2 - Exercise Oversight Responsibility

Attribute 2.01 - The oversight body should oversee the entity's internal control system.

Attribute Categories:

The following attributes contribute to the design, implementation, and operating effectiveness of this principle:

• Oversight Structure
• Oversight for the Internal Control System
• Input for Remediation of Deficiencies

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Jamie's Story

No examples are available to illustrate governance gaps for this attribute.

Election Anomalies

Dropbox Collection (2020)

There appears to be no independent oversight of Dropbox Collection activities. The Arizona Attorney General's Office's 2020 General Election Investigation report did not reference any oversight entities during its investigation of issue #2, Maricopa County Elections Department - Drop Box Collections. In the absence of formal documentation for internal oversight, this potential governance gap was rolled up to this Attribute 2.01, which is an overview of Principle 2.

This allegation of drop-box issues was raised by the Arizona Senate in 2021, which indicate MC was not adequately responding to regulators in their oversight role.

The Arizona Senate was alerted to documentation discrepancies by Verity the Vote, which was lead by two citizens. Maricopa was unable to resolve issues raised by members of the public, which is why they took their concerns to the Arizona Senate for follow up.

The AZ AG's inspector did not mention any oversight bodies or entities in the report.

Signature Verification (2020)

There appears to be no independent oversight of Dropbox Collection activities. The Arizona Attorney General's Office's 2020 General Election Investigation report did not reference any oversight entities during its investigation of issue #1, Maricopa County Elections Department - Signature Verification Process. In the absence of formal documentation for internal oversight, this potential governance gap was rolled up to this Attribute 2.01, which is an overview of Principle 2. For clarification, the Arizona Attorney General's Office is not considered an oversight entity. Their purpose was to investigate for criminal activities. Hence, many of the open items in their report were left unresolved because the issues were noteworthy investigative facts but did not identify a crime.

No entity was identified as having an oversight body for MC Election Department activities associated with signature verification anomalies. The investigation confirmed procedure violations. However, the causes for these procedure violations may still exist in the absence of an oversight entity or documentation within a Corrective Action Plan Process.