1.05

From Arizona Citizen Voice

Control Environment

Principle 1: Demonstrate Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Value

Attribute: 1.05: Tone at the top can be either a driver, as shown in the preceding paragraphs, or a barrier to internal control. Without a strong tone at the top to support an internal control system, the entity's risk identification may be incomplete, risk responses may be inappropriate, control activities may not be appropriately designed or implemented, information and communication may falter, and results of monitoring may not be understood or acted upon to remediate deficiencies.

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Jamies Story

November 2022: Mid-term Election

Katie Hobbs was serving as the Arizona Secretary of State while running for Arizona Governor during the 2022 Mid-term elections. Katie was serving an oversight role for all Arizona county elections as the Arizona Secretary of State. Relevant to this Green Book Attribute 1.02, she refused to recuse herself from the oversight role, from which ethical questions arose. She was setting the tone at the top, complying with the law was important, but ethics, not so much. This sends a signal to subordinates; they may also demonstrate unethical behavior as long as it is legally compliant.

March 12, 2026: This is How Maricopa County Wants to be Represented in Court

This specific discussion of a Potential Green Book Deviation is from a sub-section titled, Contract with the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD).

The MC legal team claimed there is no contract between MC and the Arizona MVD. This is almost impossible to comprehend given that the MVD was performing voter registration activities with a direct impact to election outcomes and yet, there was no written agreement between these two government entities. Given there is virtual certainty of some type of written agreement, I can assume that I was denied access to the documentation because I did not use the correct terminology in my records request, even though my intent was clear.

Potential Green Book Deviation:

Contrary to the Green Book, I presume that I was denied access to the written agreement between MC and the Arizona MVD because MC management simply didn't want to disclose the agreement. The bureaucratic work around may have been to deny my request based on a technicality. Perhaps the written agreement was called a Memorandum of Understanding instead of a contract. Maybe, the other government entity was Arizona Department of Transportation, not the MVD. The act of denying access to the written agreement because I did not use the correct terminology would violate ethical practices given there is no public information available from which I would have been able to use the correct terminology. With this supposition, MC management and legal team would be collaborating on this questionable tactic to deny public access to records that directly relate to internal controls.

Election Anomalies

Arizona Senate Allegations

As already noted in Green Book Attribute 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 and 1.04 Arizona Senate allegations arose from a 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. The elected officials were considered as a possible oversight entity for MC operations.

This Green Book attribute emphasizes "Tone at the top can be either a driver, as shown in the preceding paragraphs, or a barrier to internal control." The MCBOS didn't cooperated with the Senate. The MCBOS did not respond to subpoenas issued (twice) by the Senate. Instead, the MCBOS chose to pursue court remedies to keep their information private and prevent outsiders from inspecting their equipment. If this is the tone at the top, how do you think subordinates would respond to inquiries?

This potential deviation from the Green Book standard applies to the following Arizona Senate Allegations:

All of the following are sub-allegations of Allegation #3:

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