In a close 3-2 vote, the Mohave County Supervisors vetoed a move to conduct a hand count during the 2024 election on Monday. State Senator Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu) told The Arizona Sun Times prior to the vote that there were enough votes to approve it, but after the supervisors received a threat to prosecute them from Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes at the last minute, one of the supervisors, Chair Travis Lingenfelter, switched his vote.
Borrelli said Lingenfelter is part of the powerful establishment in the county, with deep family roots in the area. “They all caved to a radical leftist attorney general’s abuse of authority,” he told The Sun Times. “I’m disappointed they didn’t have enough courage to stand up against the tyrannical left. If you don’t go along, we’ll put you in the Gulag.”
Progressive attorney Marc Elias, who is behind many of the lawsuits against local and state governments that have attempted to implement election integrity measures, posted on X, “Good, one less lawsuit my team needs to file.”
Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm, who was targeted by progressive attorneys with bar complaints and sanctions, responded to Elias, “Glad you said file. Did you need the Attorney General’s threats so you could avoid filing and thereby a loss?”
Of Arizona’s 15 counties, Mohave County went the most heavily for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, 73.7 percent. All five of its county supervisors are Republicans. Borrelli told The Sun Times that solid conservative candidates are already lined up to run against the ones who voted against hand counting ballots.
Mohave County Supervisor Jean Bishop, who voted against the hand count, is not running for reelection. Supervisor Buster Johnson’s objections mainly consisted of saying he trusts the advice of the supervisors’ attorney over that of Blehm, who offered to represent the supervisors if they are sued, since the Mohave County Attorney said he will not. Borrelli, who is termed out in the state senate, said he intends to run against Johnson.
Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius, who voted for the hand count, intends to run for Borrelli’s seat. Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould, who gained a reputation as a strong conservative patriot when he served in the Arizona Legislature, was the other vote in favor.
During the meeting, while the supervisors were discussing whether the hand count would be in addition to using the voting tabulator machines or in place of them, the Maricopa County Republican Committee (MCRC) posted a flyer explaining why the machines are not necessary. The MCRC said, “AUTOMATIC BALLOT TABULATING EQUIPMENT IS ***UNNECESSARY*** WHEN BALLOTS ARE BEING COUNTED MANUALLY.”
The flyer cited A.R.S. 16-444 and A.R.S. 16-621. The former contains a definition of “vote tabulating equipment.” Section (7) states that it “includes apparatus necessary to automatically examine and count votes as designated on ballots and tabulate the results.”
The flyer highlighted Section (C) of A.R.S. 16-444 in particular, which provides, “If for any reason it becomes impracticable to count all or a part of the ballots with tabulating equipment, the officer in charge of elections may direct that they be counted manually, following as far as practicable the provisions governing the counting of paper ballots.”
Since “impracticable” is not defined in the statutes, it is open to interpretation. Conservative election attorneys have stated that there are multiple circumstances that could apply to trigger it, such as if the certification of the machines was out of date, a concern that was brought up repeatedly about machines around the state. Many of the most important Supreme Court decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, were decided in favor of novel or unpopular interpretations of the law.
The clerk for the supervisors read the letter from Mayes before the vote, which she said had just come in and was dated the day before. Mayes is prosecuting two Cochise County Supervisors for voting to hand count ballots in the 2022 election and attempting to delay certification of that election. Mayes said the Mohave County Supervisors had received bad “legal advice from bad-faith actors who are attempting to sow doubt in Arizona’s elections and ultimately undermine Arizona’s democratic process.”
Mayes argued that the word impracticable has a very narrow definition, but provided no legal authority for that assertion. She made the sweeping statement, “No evidence supports a general finding that counting ballots with tabulating equipment is impracticable.” She repeatedly stated that voting yes would be “illegal” and ended the letter with a threat, “My office … will pursue to the fullest extent of the law all possible remedies to ensure the sanctity of Arizona’s elections.”
When the supervisors’ attorney Ryan Eslin was consulted, his position essentially consisted of asserting that since Arizona statutes don’t explicitly provide for a hand count, then it is not allowed. However, he didn’t explain why A.R.S. 16-444, which allows for hand counting if tabulating machines are impracticable, didn’t apply.
Approximately 26 members of the public spoke for or against the move. Jeffrey Ryder, District 1 Director for the Mohave County GOP, received applause during his speech, but the supervisors told the audience to refrain from clapping. He said election integrity “is the defining issue of our time and one in which every other issue we have comes from.” He listed some of the fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections and went on, “It’s the reason why when I moved to Arizona, I got involved in local politics and the reason I’m speaking now.”
Several of the speakers addressed the threat from Mayes. George Hill, who identified himself as a resident of the county, said, “I have two words for Lord Mayes: stuff it.” Another resident, Steven Lee, said, “They want to control the flow of information so they can control who you vote for, this is our last bastion stand for freedom.”
Several opponents of the move complained about how long and difficult a hand count would take. On X, where there was a lively debate taking place discussing the meeting, many pointed out that Argentina just elected a right wing president in an election that was conducted in one day and tabulated by hand.
Borrelli was allowed to provide a lengthier speech. He addressed a criticism that was brought up by one of the speakers, that concerns about the machines only arose after Trump lost in 2020. Borrelli quoted then-Sen. Kamala Harris stating that she saw experts hack voting machines “before our eyes.”
He said the Arizona Legislature passed numerous bills over the past year that would have fixed the problems with the 2020 election, but Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed all of them.
Borrelli cited a report from CISA that found erroneous code on the machines in Williamson County, Tennessee. A similar report from the United States Election Assistance Commission found “erroneous code is present in the EAC certified D-Suite 5.5-B and D-Suite 5.5-C” Dominion and ES&S Machines.
He said there haven’t been any audits in Cochise County since officials blocked all of them, and wouldn’t release the source code. He cited the recent admission by Maricopa County that “they improperly certify the voting machines that failed on election day.”
He said Mayes sent the “same cut-and-paste letter” to all the counties, “where they’re in writing and intimidating; intimidating you making sure that you don’t do your job, preventing you from doing your job. kind of unhealthy that you’ll be arrested if you hand count the elections. How can you know if an election is certified, if you don’t know if it’s certifiable?”
Borrelli brought up a report commissioned by Democrats from Professor Alex Halderman, which found that 16 states had vulnerable machines, which included Arizona. He concluded saying a hand count should be conducted first, then the ballots can be run through the tabulating machines.
There was some free-flow discussion among the supervisors immediately before the vote. Gould said he was concerned since 18 percent of voting machine tabulators involved in a state senate race that was very close were found to be out of calibration. He addressed a claim that several of the speakers had brought up, that since Mohave County hadn’t been accused of widespread election fraud, that there was nothing to “fix.” He asked, “How would we know that we don’t have problems here?” He said they haven’t been fully able to look for fraud since the officials won’t give him the vote log. They have to canvass based on what they’re given.
Gould mentioned that he’s been threatened with jail already by Mayes, this is the second threat. “Why are they still afraid of this?” he asked. He pointed out that the voting machine tabulators are connected to the internet, despite claims that they’re not, “because that’s how they get updates.” He ended his speech quipping that he might need the folks who told him they’d bail him out of jail before to bail him out now.
Lingen hinted that he had changed his mind on how he was going to vote due to Mayes’ threat. “If you do the wrong guess, then you might end up in jail,” he said. Borrelli responded to him, “That’s what tyrants do, they throw you in the Gulag.”
An X account called Mohave RINOs posted a screenshot of a correction in the Kingman Daily Miner, explaining that a letter to the editor by Lingen that had been published was retracted, since it was plagiarized.
Bishop criticized the option of having Blehm represent the supervisors if sued, citing the attacks on his law license as evidence he wasn’t a good attorney. Borrelli concluded the discussion by stating that the funding is already in place from private groups to conduct the hand count.
Watch the full meeting:
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
