Arizona attorney general supports full hand counts in several Nov. 8 races

Arizona’s Republican attorney general has issued an opinion saying county officials may hand-count all ballots in at least five races in the Nov. 8 election, a move that gives a green light to GOP officials in at least two counties who have been clamoring for hand counts.

The efforts to hand-count ballots are driven by unfounded concerns among some Republicans that problems with vote-counting machines or voter fraud led to former President Trump’s 2020 defeat.

The attorney general‘s new opinion led the two Republicans on the three-member Cochise County board of supervisors to boost their plan to hand-count both early and election day ballots in some races. They had pledged Wednesday to pare back the effort.

Under Arizona law, local leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties would have to provide hundreds of volunteers to do the counts.

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At a fiery meeting Friday, Democratic Cochise County Supervisor Ann English said she would do everything she could to stop the county‘s Democratic Party chair from providing those workers.

“If I have any authority, any way that I can convince the chair of the Democratic Party in Cochise County not to provide people for this fiasco, that will be my intent,” English said. “Because I think that every day that we’re discussing this, then people are wondering what’s wrong with our elections.”

Her comment came after GOP Supervisor Peggy Judd said she wanted to move ahead. Republican Tom Crosby pushed back strongly on English’s opposition and effort to halt the hand count.

“I’m OK talking about how this will be done, but all you want to do is make it not get done,” Crosby said. “So, I’m not interested in that discussion — I’m interested in the discussion of how it will get done.”

The Cochise County Democratic Party referred inquiries Saturday about whether they would send volunteers for the expanded hand count to the state party. Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman Morgan Dick said party officials were consulting with their attorneys on the issue.

The county party posted on its Facebook page Saturday that it was “beyond disappointed in yesterday’s circus of a meeting.”

“Judd, Crosby and [county recorder David] Stevens are hell bent on appeasing MAGA election deniers instead of doing what’s right for our county,” the post continued.

The hand count would take place along with the machine count, with the latter used for the legal results.

The informal opinion issued Friday by Atty. Gen. Mark Brnovich’s office came as the Cochise County board has been battling with Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. She had warned officials there that it would be illegal to expand the required small hand count to all races. Hobbs is the state’s top election official and is running for governor.

Hobbs did give the county the OK to hand-count all election day ballots in four races, but said it would be illegal to do so for early votes, which make up more than 80% of ballots in the state. Normal hand-count audits required under law to ensure the accuracy of machine counts normally cover only a small share of ballots.

The opinion from Brnovich’s deputy solicitor general said the county may hand-count all of the ballots in as many as five races.

Hobbs’ office said it disagreed and that the law does not allow full hand counts for early ballots.

“With early voting well under way and less than two weeks from election day, these antics are doing nothing more than creating chaos and confusion around the election and tabulation of ballots, which is wildly irresponsible,” Hobbs’ office said in a statement.

Supervisors in Pinal County, a much larger and growing suburban area just south of metro Phoenix’s Maricopa County, also have been considering a hand count. Boards in both counties plan to meet next week to discuss the issue.

The elected Republican county attorneys in both jurisdictions have warned that there is no legal authority to expand a hand-count of ballots. All that is allowed are the small hand-count audits required under state law to determine that vote tabulation machines are correctly counting the ballots.

“It would be illegal at this point to do a full hand count,” Pinal County Atty. Kent Volkmer told his board on Wednesday.

Cochise County Atty. Brian McIntyre has told the board there that he also believes a full hand count is illegal, and has said the board and county recorder would need to find outside attorneys if they went ahead with their plan. He repeated that Friday after Supervisor Judd said Brnovich had given the go-ahead.

McIntyre also noted that the effort runs afoul of a legal doctrine set up by the U.S. Supreme Court that says election rules and procedures can’t be changed close to an election.

An effort to hand count ballots in rural Nevada’s Nye County has also been beset with issues, including slowness and a legal challenge that forced the count to halt Thursday night. Officials in the GOP-led county pledged to restart their effort as soon as possible.