16.10

From Arizona Citizen Voice

Monitoring

Principle 16 - Perform Monitoring Activities

Attribute 16.10 - Management identifies changes in the internal control system that either have occurred or are needed because of changes in the entity and its environment. External parties can also help management identify issues in the internal control system. For example, complaints from the public, regulator comments, and findings from investigations may indicate areas in the internal control system that need improvement. Other external parties that interact with the entity, including relevant suppliers, contractors, and service organizations, may collaborate with management to identify and respond to issues in the entity's business processes and related internal controls. Management considers whether current controls address the identified issues and modifies controls if necessary.

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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. T

This Green Book Attribute states, "External parties can also help management identify issues in the internal control system. For example, complaints from the public, regulator comments, and findings from investigations may indicate areas in the internal control system that need improvement."

MC leadership did not address citizen concerns about election-related anomalies, which were elevated to the Arizona Senate. MC leadership continued the uncooperative behavior with the Arizona Senate, which ultimately resulted in the following allegations.

Maricopa County Directs the Use of Sharpie Pens

Using email, the Elections Department, Assistant Director of Recruitment and Training suspended the practice of handing out Sharpie Markers to in-person early voters on October 22 after issues were identified. However, the Assistant Director also directed that Sharpie Markers be handed to in-person voters on Election Day. As a change, Maricopa County apparently decided to direct voters to fill in ballot with a Sharpie Marker instead of using a ballpoint pen per the ballot instructions. Whether or not this change had an impact on the election results is debatable. For what ever reason Maricopa thought it important to use Sharpie Marker during the 2020 election, they have not passed out Sharpie Markers in subsequent elections. More importantly, there was no testing performed to verify ballots filled in with Sharpie Markers had the same degree of accuracy, or better, than those ballots filled in with ballpoint pens.

  • 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.
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