The Mohave County Republican Central Committee criticized Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (pictured above) for calling a plan to count election ballots by hand rather than using voting machines in 2024 “One of the dumbest ideas in politics.”
On June 5th, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors directed staff to review and develop a plan for tabulating the 2024 elections by hand. Between June 22nd, 2023, and June 26th, 2023, the Mohave County Elections Department conducted a study to test the feasibility and best practices of carrying out a full-hand tabulation of the 2024 elections.
As part of the study, the Mohave County Elections Department counted 850 ballots with an average of 36 races per ballot with an error rate of 5.4 percent.
The Mohave County Elections Department has now developed a plan off of that study for tabulating the 2024 elections by hand which they will present at a special Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday to discuss and review the proposition.
The proposed plan details that in order to successfully hand count the 2024 primary and general elections they would need to hire new full and part-time staff to recruit, observe, and train tally workers, recruit and hire a minimum of 245 tally workers to count ballots, recruit and hire a minimum of 30 people for write-in board members for the primary and general elections, recruit and hire a minimum of 56 people for recount board members for primary and general elections, prepare and secure the Mohave County Fairgrounds for the counting of ballots, secure the vehicles necessary to transport ballots between the fairgrounds and election department, acquire a minimum of three security guards to ensure the security of the election, train tally workers prior to each election, procure video equipment for use during the counting of ballots, and allocate approximately $1,108,486 plus recount cost $31,360 to conduct the hand counts.
According to Richer, although the Mohave County Elections Department put together a “well done” report, counting ballots by hand instead of using election machines is a dumb idea.
“Maricopa County will have over 2 million votes cast in the November 2024 election with approximately 80 races per ballot. This is one of the dumbest ideas in politics currently,” Richer said.
The Mohave County GOP rebutted against Richer’s statement saying that having the people feel that their vote counts is not a dumb idea.
“One of the dumbest ideas? To have the PEOPLE feel their vote counts? Counting how it was done for years and years previously? You forget who you work for. The people want to trust their elections and want the machines to go. You remember the people right, who you are supposed to work for and represent. Bring the count back to the precincts! Ideally, we would take the hand count to the electoral precinct, where the people have the power… which is what the VOTERS want. A good start would be counting only the Presidential primary by hand as a trial run,” The Mohave County GOP said.
One of the dumbest ideas? To have the PEOPLE feel their vote counts? Counting how it was done for years and years previously? You forget who you work for.
— Mohave County GOP (@MohaveCountyGOP) July 28, 2023
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will take “possible action” regarding the hand counting of ballots in the 2024 election.
Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu) (pictured here) agrees that Mohave County needs to switch to hand-counting ballots because electronic voting machines are vulnerable to hacking and the government has no jurisdiction over them.
“Our electronic voting systems, which are made with components from countries considered adversaries to the U.S. puts Arizona as well as the rest of the nation in an extremely vulnerable and dangerous position. This is a national security issue. If we cannot have free and fair elections, we are in trouble,” Borrelli said.
Borrelli introduced Senate Bill (SB) 1074 earlier this year, which aimed to prohibit electronic voting systems in Arizona as the primary method for conducting, counting, tabulating, or verifying federal elections. Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the legislation in April, claiming that counting ballots by hand takes more time and is less accurate.
Despite Hobbs’ veto, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors voted to consider doing a hand count of the 2024 election last month. The county will ultimately need to approve the hand-count plan. According to the press release, the board may adopt, modify, or reject the proposed plan to count the ballots by hand for the 2024 elections at Tuesday’s special meeting.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star, The Star News Network, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Stephen Richer” by Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.
