Board of Supervisors Addendum - Regular Meeting

All right. Looks like we have a critical mass of Board of Supervisors. So let's go ahead and begin this special meeting. I will pass it to the Clerk of the Board, Melissa Mendriquez, for roll call. Yeah.

Supervisor Cano. Present. Supervisor Christie.

Here.

Supervisor Hines.

Present.

Supervisor Scott. Chair Allen. Here. To let the record show, Supervisor Scott is not present. All other board members are present. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance, and I believe that we have Lucia Pernilla, Administrative Assistant II, from the Office of the Medical Examiner, who will provide the Pledge of Allegiance today.

Hi, good afternoon. All right, so I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And our next item is reading of the Land Acknowledgement We don't have anyone keyed up for that. Supervisor Cano, would I be putting you on the spot if I asked you to pull it up and read it?

Sure, absolutely, Chair Allen. On behalf of Pima County residents, we honor the tribal nations who have served as caretakers of this land from time immemorial. and respectfully acknowledge the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the multi-millennial presence of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe within Pima County. Consistent with Pima County's commitment to diversity and inclusion, we strive toward building equal partner relationships with Arizona's tribal nations.

Thank you. Moving on to item four, which is the big item for the day. It is the canvas of the election results for the July 21 I believe we have with us both Director Hargrove from Pima County Elections Department and Marion Chubon, the Chief Deputy Recorder from the Recorder's Office. I'm wondering if you might start with Director Hargrove. I know we have a memo from you. Is there anything that you want to share about this election?

Chair Allen, members of the board, good afternoon. Yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to add a little bit more context to the memo that I provided. So the memo that I provided, of course, includes a section of the audit of the results. And just want to clarify that That audit takes place on election day ballots only. So that does not include any early ballots. Early ballots go through the recorder's office through signature verification. Then it comes to our office and we verify that we received the number of ballots that are indicated on the transfer form and we process those ballots. So this is not an early ballot audit. This is an election day audit only. And so as we were processing ballots on election night, obviously the ballots did not get put back into the ballot box that they should have been put back in. And they ran the next set of ballots, but then included the 16 ballots that they had already run in the previous vote center. So when we look at the audit, we look at the turnout, which is the number of people checked into the poll book. and the number of ballots that we actually receive, right? If that number does not match, then we try to determine why that number doesn't match. So with all of our reports, reviewing everything that we could review, I still kept coming back to these 16 ballots. So 16 ballots just did not match. We contacted the inspector and the judge of the vote center, and these ballots were printed and produced on our express vote voting equipment, which is the accessible equipment that we use in the vote centers on election day. The official ballot report, which is one of the attachments that I had on there for you, for the vote center in question, which would be vote center 41, they did not indicate that they had any express vote ballots. However, There were 16 express vote ballots in their box. So when we checked everything for that vote center, we did confirm based on all the evidence, there were no check-ins for anyone. No one was issued a ballot that would have been printed on the express vote. So looking at all of that staff realized, okay, the vote center right before that one, that the same operator ran. had exactly 16 express vote ballots. So we went to the ballot box, we opened the ballot box, checked it. They had no express vote ballots, which kind of then indicated, OK, there is there is a mix up here. So we we looked at those numbers, we looked at what they put on their official ballot report, and they did indicate that they had 16 express vote ballots. So we were able to determine okay, the operator didn't put them back, ran the ballots twice. So that was the decision that was made. That was the determination that was made. And it was the right determination. So after we went through all of that, we had to contact the political party chairs to let them know that there was a discrepancy that needed to be corrected. The correction was taking those ballots away from that vote center that we tabulated them in twice. So we had to go to the election management system and remove that entire vote center and then rerun those ballots again. So the party chairs graciously, they were so gracious with the short timing that I gave them to actually come in or have someone come in to actually witness this, look at all the ballots. looked at everything that we had to present to them. And they signed off on it that they did witness it, they were okay with it. We ran, we ran the ballots. And now our numbers are good. So that was a large discrepancy. If we see like one ballot, two ballots, it's a check in error, mostly, or someone abandoning a ballot, right, just not actually putting it into the ballot box, but they've been checked in. So just wanted to add a little bit more context to that so that you guys understand what actually happened election night. Of course, there will be some more training and some other things put in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again. One, just making sure you put all the ballots back and lock that ballot box before you move on to the next vote center. So that resolved that discrepancy and everything worked out well. The other thing I just wanted to just kind of briefly highlight is the ID verify process. So the ID verify process on election day was very successful. It was well received by the voters and the poll workers implemented it so well that I was just shocked, right? So they did such a great job in implementing this. And we have a process in place. Of course, we always have to tweak it, but it was fairly seamless for voters. We have to tweak it a little bit here on our end, but it was successful. And I believe that more voters will take advantage of it on election day because they did seem to like it. So 6,017 ballots were processed from that. And I think it worked very well. And I will answer any questions that you may have.

Do any supervisors have some questions?

Chair Allen.

Supervisor Connell.

Thank you to the director for the update. And I wanted to, of course, celebrate the fact that over 180 86,000 Pima County residents utilized their right to vote in the July 21st primary elections, about a 28.9% turnout. As we prepare for the November election, I want to extend a huge thanks to all of our election workers, especially those who were there with the 20,000 or so of our neighbors that voted in person on the day of the election. This takes Lots of work and lots of commitment, lots of due diligence. And I have nothing but full confidence in all of our elections and reporters team for doing their due diligence to ensure that we have a safe and secure election. And that is indeed what we had on July 21st. Without hearing any further comments, I'd like to motion to approve the canvas of July 21st.

Discussion, Madam Chair?

Supervisor Christie?

Yes, thank you. It's timely for the elections director's comments because what I'd just like to state at this point is that due to the limited format of today's special meeting, we'd like to request an after-action report from both the elections director and the county recorder's office outlining opportunities for improvements and any lessons learned during the primary ahead of the upcoming general election. We look forward to discussing... such subjects at the August 25th regular Board of Supervisors meeting, and we will be placing an agenda item regarding such on the August 25th agenda. If our office has any concerns or questions, we will submit them well in advance of the August 25th Board of Supervisors meeting, and we certainly invite our colleagues to do the same. Thank you, Madam Chair.

chair allen i just wanted to make sure i um had a second for that last motion thank you dr heinz and chair allen do you have a question for supervisor christy if that's okay uh so yes it was seconded by supervisor heinz uh and then discussion so question uh supervisor conno thank you supervisor christy so consistent with what you've done in prior elections you simply want an report from our elections team and our reporters team about any lessons learned from the last canvas and from the last election and just want to reiterate that is something that you have asked in prior times and you also don't have a particular point of concern to bring forward to the board in the canvas of this election right now you're simply asking that we do that due diligence in august at our second meeting that's correct uh madam chair and

Should we have questions that arise between now and that meeting, we'll certainly submit those questions far in advance of that meeting so all parties can be prepared.

Before we end the vote, just in recognition that the Deputy Director from the Recorder's Office is also here with us as well. Deputy Director Chabon, I don't know if you had anything that you planned to share, if you were just here to encase there were questions. If you had anything to share, please, by all means do, but otherwise.

I don't. Thank you. I'm just here in the recorder who's taking a much-needed vacation and was just here as support for the elections director in their campus. Okay. Great.

Well, thank you for being here. Yes, Dr. Hargrove. The August 25th meeting, that's a little soon for me to have an after-action report ready. Can I have a little bit more time for that?

Madam Chair, Director Hargrove, how long would you feel you'd be comfortable preparing that?

I think we should be able to pull that together by the first meeting in September.

That would be fine. September 8th.

Yes.

If you're comfortable with that timeframe, I am too.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Is there any further discussion? No? No? All right. Yes, Supervisor Carno.

Thank you. It just goes without saying, congratulations to those who came out of the primary election. To all of the candidates, it takes a lot of effort to run, and some are going on to their general election, and some have essentially won in their primary election. So congratulations to all, from justices of the peace to legislators to all of our statewide candidates. for their results that were made possible by the voters in July.

And congratulations, including to county supervisors. All right, so we will go for a vote. Don't believe I'm looking for the clerk. I don't believe we have to do a roll call.

Chair Ellen, if you would like a roll call, I can do a roll call.

Um, that's okay. Okay. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? The canvas is approved 12340 with Supervisor Scott being absent. And with that, we will adjourn the meeting. I'll make the I don't know why I always forget this. Do we have to vote on adjournment? Chair Allen, we do not need a motion to adjourn. Excellent.

Well, then we're just adjourned. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you all. Have a good rest of the day.