North Pima News

A legislative impasse in Phoenix over the state budget has jeopardized election legislation that the Kenneth Sampsons of the world are advocating for future elections.

Sampson worked as an official observer during the November 2020 General Elections at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC), and a few weeks after the election signed a declaration alleging he witnessed numerous errors in ballot processing. 

In his declaration, Sampson wrote that no quality control existed in the procedure for creating duplicated ballots, which were allegedly being duplicated by the observers, then uploaded directly to the server.

“There was no attempt by MCTEC to determine the accuracy rate of the duplicate ballots, or a random sampling to show that the votes were being entered correctly,” Sampson wrote.

He also said there was a break in the chain of custody for rejected ballots, and that would “create questions about the integrity of the duplicate process by casting suspicion on the security of the duplicate ballots and who had access to them before they defective five ballots were entered into the system.

“Hypothetically, an individual could replace/extract alternate ballots in storage, and as long as the totals equal the same amount upon arrival at the imager or the collective bin, there would be no way to demonstrate that the same ballots that were isolated by the tabulator were the same ballots that eventually were imaged and finalized,” he wrote.

The proposed bill in the Legislature also contains strict guidelines covering the duplication process, including requiring witnesses to the duplications of early voting ballots that have been damaged.

The current proposed election legislation, Senate Bill 1241, sponsored by Sen. Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa), would prevent many of the alleged errors cited by Sampson, including in the duplication process of damaged ballots. But final passage was held up last month by the absence of a key Republican vote in a Senate where the Republicans hold a slim 16-14 lead. Now the bill is caught up in the fight over the state budget.

Townsend’s vote on the budget is no guarantee.  

She will not vote for the budget unless “it has significant election security measures in it,” she tweeted late last month. "This is absolute and I am immovable. I cannot in good conscience support any money issues without reforms that restore confidence in our elections.”

Among other reforms, Townsend’s legislation requires that all official elections be granted an unobstructed view of all election activities, including views of the connection and removal of any removable external devices from voting equipment until all election data is officially recorded, or the removable device is stored securely.