Jamies Story

Improving the Relationship Between Citizens and Government

I, Jamie Weinhauer Martin, started this journey because I had questions about what happened after the 2020 election.

Because the election was conducted under unprecedented pandemic conditions, I expected to find documented Lessons Learned and Corrective Actions showing what had been identified, what had been learned, what had been corrected, and how the effectiveness of those corrections had been measured.

My professional background is in third-party contract compliance and corrective action. Because of that experience, I knew the types of contract provisions to look for, including oversight provisions, termination rights, corrective action requirements, Lessons Learned, and disaster-recovery responsibilities.

As I reviewed county election contracts and requested public records, I could not identify a clear documented trail showing what problems had been identified after the pandemic election, what corrective actions resulted, whether Lessons Learned had been formally documented, and whether those corrective actions had been verified.

That was where my questions began.

I was not trying to prove that an election was right or wrong. I was not trying to blame anyone.

I came across things involving election contracts, procedures, public records and government processes that did not make sense to me, so I did what I believed any citizen should be able to do:

I kept asking questions.

Some questions were answered. Others were not.

Eventually, I realized the larger issue was no longer one election, one contract or one procedure.

The bigger issue was this:

What happens when a citizen brings government a documented concern and asks someone qualified to determine whether something is actually wrong?

That question ultimately became the reason for this work.

The Bigger Issue

Through my experience, I could not identify a clear, required county process that takes a significant citizen-reported compliance concern from beginning to end.

What I was looking for was something like this:

The questions behind that process are simple:

• Where did the concern go?
• Who was responsible for reviewing it?
• Who determined whether a law, statute, contract term, policy, procedure, ethics requirement or internal control had actually been violated?
• If something was wrong, who made sure it was corrected?
• Who verified that the correction actually worked?
• Who monitored the issue when necessary to make sure the problem did not recur?
• How did the citizen know the matter had been resolved and formally closed?

Those sound-like simple questions.

They were not simple to answer.

How I Got Here

My experience began in Maricopa County, Arizona, and that remains the primary focus of my story.

Based on conversations with citizens in other Arizona counties, I believe similar questions may exist elsewhere, but I do not want to make claims that I cannot support. What I can document is what happened to me in Maricopa County.

Over several years, I communicated with County and State personnel, elected officials and others while trying to understand election-related contracts, policies, procedures, public records and oversight responsibilities.

The story became long because the issues became complicated.

But one thing kept happening.

I could get answers to some individual questions.

I could be referred from one office to another.

I could submit public-records requests.

Officials could explain their individual positions.

What I could not find was one clearly defined process that owned the concern from beginning to end and produced a documented determination and closure.

That became the real story.

This Is About Process, Not People

Throughout this website, I share some of my verbal and written communications with government personnel.

I intentionally withhold the names of government employees, except elected officials, because my purpose is not to blame individual employees.

During many of my interactions, I believed the employee was trying to do the right thing.

The problem is bigger than any one employee.

If an organization does not have a clear process, good people can still produce a bad result for the citizen.

A concern can move from office to office without anyone clearly owning responsibility for determining whether something is actually wrong and seeing the matter through to resolution.

That is the governance problem I am trying to address.

Why I Looked at Governance

I spent years professionally working with Corrective Action Plans, commonly called CAPs.

In the environments where I worked, when a potentially significant problem was identified, we did not stop at acknowledging the problem or forwarding it to another department.

We determined what happened.

We identified the applicable requirement.

We determined whether a violation or deficiency existed.

When necessary, we identified why it happened.

We established corrective action.

We assigned responsibility.

We verified that the corrective action had actually been implemented and worked.

When appropriate, we monitored the issue to make sure the correction remained effective.

Then the matter was formally closed.

But I also knew I could not simply say:

“This is not how we did it where I worked, therefore Maricopa County is doing it wrong.”

That would not be fair.

I needed an independent benchmark.

The Green Book

I selected the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, commonly known as the GAO Green Book, as a benchmark for examining the governance and internal-control issues I encountered.

The Green Book is published by the United States Government Accountability Office.

Arizona counties are not required to use the Green Book as their governing standard. I use it as a benchmark because it provides an established framework for evaluating governance and internal controls independent of my personal professional experience.

At a high level, the Green Book examines five areas:

1. Control Environment — Who is responsible, and are people held accountable?
2. Risk Assessment — What could go wrong?
3. Control Activities — What safeguards and procedures prevent or correct problems?
4. Information and Communication — Does the right information reach the right people, including information coming from outside the organization?
5. Monitoring — Are controls working, and are identified problems being corrected?

Using the Green Book gave us a structured way to examine what I had experienced without relying solely on my own judgment.

The Limitation of Being a Citizen

Normally, a compliance review or CAP investigation is conducted from inside an organization.

The people performing the review may have access to policies, procedures, records, systems, contracts and personnel so they can determine what happened and why.

I did not have that access.

I was a citizen standing outside government trying to look in.

I had to rely on public records, government documents, correspondence, published information and responses from government personnel.

That limitation is important.

It is also one of the reasons I believe the citizen should not be expected to perform the government’s compliance review.

The citizen should bring the concern and the supporting information. Government should have a qualified process capable of determining the answer.

What I Found

After putting the pieces together, I came to a fairly simple conclusion:

Our research did not identify a clear, required county-level process for taking a significant citizen-reported concern from intake through objective compliance review, documented determination, investigation when warranted, corrective action when warranted, verification, monitoring when appropriate and formal closure.

That is the gap.

That does not mean government never investigates problems.

It does not mean every citizen complaint is valid.

It does not mean the citizen is always right and government is always wrong.

It means something much simpler:

There should be a process capable of determining which is which.

When a citizen brings a documented concern involving an applicable law, statute, contract term, policy, procedure, ethics requirement or internal control to government, someone qualified should determine whether there is actually a compliance problem.

If there is no violation or deficiency, the review and determination should be documented, communicated and the matter closed.

If there is a violation or deficiency, corrective action should be initiated when warranted, responsibility should be assigned, the correction should be implemented and verified, and monitoring should occur when appropriate.

Then the matter should be formally closed.

The citizen should not have to understand the entire government organizational chart to figure out where a legitimate concern belongs.

Government leadership should also have a way to know that significant concerns are not falling through the cracks.