The Pima County Recorder’s Office held their first ever public event Friday, May 3 to explain the “life of a ballot.”
Members of the media and about ten community members were let into a typically highly restricted office — double-locked doors, security cameras, banks of computers and sorting machines — to see how mail-in ballots were received and verified. With over 620,000 registered voters in the county, and an increasingly high percentage of them voting by mail, the recorder’s office is working to assure the public that mail-in ballots are secure and transparent.
Community members from both major parties — with widely varying impressions of the security of elections — attended the presentation of the county recorder’s work which, despite rising national attention on Arizona, officials repeatedly joked was a “boring” process.
The two-hour session detailed the step-by-step process the county takes to maintain the county’s voter registration list, as well as receive, verify, count and eventually turn over ballots to the county’s election department so they can be tallied.
“Democracy is alive and well in Pima County,” said Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly at the event.
The last two election cycles in Arizona, the midterms in 2022 and the presidential election in 2020, were followed by dispute, denial and years of unfounded accusations of fraud and corruption. While Pima County didn’t get embroiled in the level of controversy seen in Maricopa County, with Arizona remaining a nationally decisive state, officials are preparing for increased scrutiny and possible contention.
The county recorder’s office is responding to those disputes by committing to bipartisan, transparent and secure operations throughout every step of the process.
“We are not only following the law but we are handling your vote and your right to vote with careful attention and a deep sense of responsibility to our community,” Cázares-Kelly said.
She added: “We are responsible for ensuring that a voter is able to participate in our most fundamental right of being American. I’m not joking when I say we talk about that every single day.”
But Cázares-Kelly also recognized that in “the current climate there is a lot of distrust and concern,” and that distrust has a “real possibility of disenfranchising voters.”
That distrust will be hard to overcome.
“I feel more concerned than when I came in,” said Tara Maldonado Oster, who was attending the public event.
Oster, who volunteers as a Republican precinct committeeman in charge of getting out the vote, said that mail-in voting is “just so different than in-person voting.” Her concerns are centered around how many hands actually touch the ballot and the signature verification process.
She said that same day, in-person voting makes more sense. “It’s simpler,” Oster said. “There’s just a lot going on here,” she added, referring to the recorder’s office.
The county has been conducting mail-in voting at a large scale since the early 1990s, according to election officials.
Marcy Albert, meanwhile, who volunteers with the Democratic party in Tucson’s Legislative District 21, and who also attended the recorder’s office event, said she “was very impressed. I’m feeling very comfortable and I feel in good hands.”
“I’m confident they’re doing everything they can. Information is power, and that’s what they’ve given us,” Albert said.
To win over people who continue to distrust the process, the recorder’s office will continue to hold public information events. The office will release more information on that soon.
How it works
Each ballot is examined and checked in what David Greenwood, one of the ballot processing supervisors, said is “an incredibly boring process.”
Cázares-Kelly and Greenwood walked attendees through how bipartisan teams pick up, process and secure ballots throughout their time in the recorder’s office custody.
Cázares-Kelly emphasized that the recorder’s office does not count the votes. They don’t even open the envelopes. They merely collect early ballots, count them and then confirm signatures. If there are any problems with the ballot — such as a missing signature — they go through a process of attempting to “cure” the ballot.
The step-by-step process looks like this:
- The county recorder’s office receives ballots in pale-yellow envelopes. Bipartisan courier teams pick them up from the United States Postal Service and deliver them to the recorder’s office.
- Officials then open the mailing envelopes (they do not open the ballot affidavit envelopes that contain the actual ballots) and then scan them to make sure that each voter only casts a single vote. After the ballot envelopes are scanned, the office sends out a status update to the voter via text message or email.
- Officials verify the signatures on the ballot envelopes. This step includes an initial review of the signature and a comparison to multiple signatures in a voter’s file. If there is any question or possible discrepancy during the initial check, a more experienced signature checker will step in. Cázares-Kelly said that the office only uses human signature checks – no AI or computer does signature verification.
- If a signature is missing or a return envelope is missing, a team member will work to “cure” the ballot by calling, texting, emailing or reaching out by mail to the voter to give them a chance to properly cast their vote.
- Affidavit envelopes are then “bundled,” which means they are sorted to make sure they are not lost and that the signature verification process is traceable.
- Last, the ballot envelopes are all turned over to the Elections Department where officials will begin the process of counting the votes.
Throughout all of the above steps, each time a ballot envelope is “touched,” there is a bipartisan team of at least two people mutually engaged in and witnessing the process.
“You can’t even look at a ballot without two people from different parties,” said Greenwood.
“These are sacred documents and they need to be treated as such,” he said.
For more information about ballot processing in Pima County, visit the recorder’s office FAQ page. They will also be announcing more public events soon.
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