Preface
I, Jamie Weinhauer Martin, will share my story so that you might understand why I have determined there is a governance performance problem within the State of Arizona’s Maricopa County. I suspect this governance issue exists in other Arizona Counties based on my conversations with people living in other counties. This issue may be more widespread than I think. That said, I have contained this story to my experiences with Maricopa County issues, which included interfaces with State and County personnel.
The story is long and convoluted. The issues are many and complex.
I have tried to accommodate the interests of various readers by organizing the material in a way that is, I hope, comfortable for you, the reader. There are two separate documents that interface with each other to tell the complete story. The first document, this story, explains how data was obtained. The second document, the governance piece, explains why I believe the data suggests a governance problem.
My story is told from the first-person perspective. I will be sharing the content of some of my conversations (verbally and digitally) with government personnel. I am intentionally withholding the names of government employees (excluding elected officials) to prevent unintended consequences. During my interfaces, I always felt like the employee was trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, doing the right thing from his/her perspective may be the wrong thing from the citizen’s perspective. Many conversations were frustrating, but my goal is to fix the processes, not blame people.
The separate document addressing governance gaps was far more difficult to develop than my first-hand account. Normally, CAP investigations are conducted from within the organizational entity where there is unrestrained access to policies, procedures and personnel to determined what happened and why. As a member of the public, I was an outsider looking into the entity trying to collect as much information as possible to make a fair assessment of performance.
I questioned whether I could judge their performance based on my experience; I had a lot of CAP experience. However, that didn’t seem ethical and could be disregarded as being biased by someone that didn’t agree with my conclusions.
I selected the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (May 2025) as the benchmark for my assessment of Maricopa County governance. The Green Book as it is more commonly called is published by the United States Government Accountability Office. This standard was created as a result of the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act of 1982 (FMFIA). More information about the Green Book is provided within the book itself; the book explains how to use the book.
I will try to identify a specific governance gap in my story by providing a cross-reference from my story to applicable attributes in the Green Book. I may miss a few cross-references or you may find performance gaps that I didn’t recognize. Please let me know if you find a gap that I had missed; I will consider revising the governance document to show the new gap.
Separately, the Arizona Attorney General's 2020 General Election Investigation was used to identify Governance Gaps. The inspector's were addressing criminal issues, but their observations reveal some governance gaps withing the county government. This was addressed as Election Anomalies.
I hope you will appreciate the effort taken to make the story easier to follow will also allowing you to understand the context of the identified performance gaps.
Timeline
- Preface — Author's introduction
- 2020: The Event — The November 2020 general election anomalies
- 2001: The Journey Begins — Starting to ask questions about lessons learned
- November 2024: Midterm Election — The Katie Hobbs situation
- December 2024: Gaining Support — Resolution submission
- April 15, 2025: Public Records Request — Public Records Request process
- May 15, 2025: Let’s Play Hot Potato — Public Records Request runaround
- August 3, 2026: Submitted Complaint — Formal complaint submission
