November 20, 2023
Mohave County, Ariz. — Today, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors met to discuss a proposal to conduct a 100% hand count of all cast ballots in the 2024 elections. In response, All Voting Is Local Action Arizona State Director Alex Gulotta released the following statement:
“Entertaining this proposal serves those who wish to subvert our elections at the expense of voters. Not only is this proposal flagrantly against election best practices, the Board of Supervisors would squander county resources to the tune of at least $1.1 million and potentially face legal action from state officials.
This action hurts voters, wastes taxpayers’ dollars, and goes against the already tested, verified, and audited vote-counting process. We implore the county to reject this proposal in favor of the already efficient and accurate method of using vote counting machine tabulators.”
Background:
In August, the supervisors considered hand-counting ballots but voted 3-2 against the idea after the county’s elections director conducted a trial and found it would cost around $1.1 million. The county is already facing an $18 million budget deficit, and county supervisors cited that as a reason for rejecting the hand-count proposal.