17.06: Difference between revisions

From Arizona Citizen Voice
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===== [[2020 Maricopa County Directs Use of Sharpie Pens|Maricopa County Directs the Use of Sharpie Pens]] =====
===== [[2020 Maricopa County Directs Use of Sharpie Pens|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.
As of September 2026, the Maricopa County website seeks to dispel suspicions of inappropriate use Sharpie Markers under the heading "2020 Election Myths."


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.
In chain of interrelated events and actions, Maricopa County claims the root of the problem was long lines at voting centers; "federal law requires counties to work to avoid long voting lines."


The evaluation of the identified issues and concerns were apparently not documented. Maricopa County leadership was unable to provide any documentation of the acceptability of Sharpie Markers before they were placed in use AND did not document the evaluation of the issues and concerns once they were identified by field personnel prior to October 22, 2020. No corrective actions to the issues and concerns were documented.
For an effort to comply with Federal law, there is no documentation to support their claim that Sharpies were needed. The offer excuses and defend actions in the absence of any investigation and creation of corrective actions. Maricopa County claims long lines were occurring because of delays needed to clean the ballot tabulators, which had become fouled with ink. The transfer of ink to the tabulators was attributed to the use of ballpoint pens; the ink had not dried before running through the tabulator. They claim the issue only occurred at the voting centers because the ink always had enough time to dry for early mail-in ballots.
 
It's a weak explanation, if that was truly the problem, why they returned to ballpoint pens at the voting centers? Where is the '''documentation''' to prove the use of Sharpie Markers were the result of rigorous analysis and planning by Maricopa County?

Revision as of 20:57, 9 September 2026

Monitoring

Principle 17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies

Attribute 17.06 - Management completes and documents corrective actions to remediate internal control deficiencies, including those reported from internal and external audits and evaluations, on a timely basis [documentation requirement]. Depending on the nature of the deficiency, either the oversight body or management oversees the prompt remediation of deficiencies by communicating the corrective actions to the appropriate level of the organizational structure and delegating authority for completing corrective actions to appropriate personnel. Documentation of corrective actions may include

  • root cause analysis,
  • planned actions,
  • interim milestones,
  • completion dates,
  • measurable indicators of compliance and remediation to assess and validate progress throughout the remediation process, and
  • the entity official responsible for monitoring the status of the corrective actions.

Note: The GAO emphasized the "documentation requirement."


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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 Green Book attribute requires documentation of corrective action process steps, which was not available to the AZ AG's inspector.

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.

No corrective actions to the five identified procedure violations were identified in the AZ AG's inspector's report. See the heading Deviation: Allegations Confirmed from Maricopa Dropbox Collection (2020) webpage for additional details.

Governance issues identified from Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation of Arizona Senate allegations of Maricopa County - Signature Verification Process issues. No corrective actions were noted in the inspector's report, which is consistent with a lack of an evaluation.

As of September 2026, the Maricopa County website seeks to dispel suspicions of inappropriate use Sharpie Markers under the heading "2020 Election Myths."

In chain of interrelated events and actions, Maricopa County claims the root of the problem was long lines at voting centers; "federal law requires counties to work to avoid long voting lines."

For an effort to comply with Federal law, there is no documentation to support their claim that Sharpies were needed. The offer excuses and defend actions in the absence of any investigation and creation of corrective actions. Maricopa County claims long lines were occurring because of delays needed to clean the ballot tabulators, which had become fouled with ink. The transfer of ink to the tabulators was attributed to the use of ballpoint pens; the ink had not dried before running through the tabulator. They claim the issue only occurred at the voting centers because the ink always had enough time to dry for early mail-in ballots.

It's a weak explanation, if that was truly the problem, why they returned to ballpoint pens at the voting centers? Where is the documentation to prove the use of Sharpie Markers were the result of rigorous analysis and planning by Maricopa County?