17.05
Monitoring
Principle 17 - Evaluate Issues and Remediate Deficiencies
Attribute 17.05 - Management evaluates and documents internal control issues and determines appropriate corrective actions for internal control deficiencies, including those reported from internal and external audits and evaluations, on a timely basis [documentation requirement]. Management evaluates issues identified through monitoring activities or reported by personnel to determine whether any of the issues rise to the level of an internal control deficiency. Internal control deficiencies require further evaluation and remediation by management. An internal control deficiency can be in the design, implementation, or operating effectiveness of the internal control and its related process. Management determines from the type of internal control deficiency the appropriate corrective actions to remediate it on a timely basis. Management assigns responsibility and delegates authority for remediating the deficiency.
Note: The GAO emphasized "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 attribute specifically requires documentation for these corrective action related activities.
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.
The AZ AG's inspection did not report on any MC internal investigation of the lapses in chain of custody documentation, which should have been documented. Additionally, no corrective actions were identified even though the allegations had been confirmed; there were procedure violations.
Governance issues identified from Arizona Attorney General's Office 2020 General Election Investigation of Arizona Senate allegations of Maricopa County - Signature Verification Process issues. The inspector did not identify any investigation of Signature Verifier issues.
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.
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.
