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

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

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 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.
• 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.
• Inspectors were the target audience of this email message. The email asked inspectors to intentionally distribute Sharpie Pens on Election Day in the same email that had also acknowledgeed there are issues with the use of Sharpie Pens on ballots prior to October 22, 2020. The very people (i.e., inspectors) that should have been directing compliance with the ballot instructions the use of ball point pens were being told to violate ballot instructions by ensuring poll workers distributed Sharpie Marker to voters on Election Day, even though there were know issues with Sharpie Markers.