Pinal County Election Recount Shows Major Errors in Counting Process

By the time Virginia Ross appeared before Pinal County’s supervisors one last time, she had already sold her house.

The elections director just needed the supervisors to vote “yes” on Nov. 21, finalizing the November election, and she would be on her way to retirement.

“I stand by the results,” she assured them.

A lot hinged on this moment. After a primary election debacle in August, the county manager had brought Ross on to right the ship. The county paid her handsomely: more than $40,000 a month leading up to the election. That’s more than five times what the past two elections directors had made. Plus, she would get a $25,000 bonus if supervisors voted yes.

The supervisors made it easy for her: They didn’t ask her any questions, voting unanimously to certify the results. She got her bonus, and quickly moved to an East Texas town with fewer than 1,000 residents.

It would be another month before Arizona voters learned what internal evidence already showed — that Ross had botched the count in a way that excluded hundreds of votes from the original results, enough to nearly overturn the outcome of a statewide race.

While county officials have repeatedly said the county didn’t know of potential problems with the results before the supervisors’ vote, a Votebeat investigation found that election officials had documented numerous errors counting ballots and witnessed several red flags before the vote. One supervisor publicly said he had heard of problems that could have affected the count. But election officials didn’t resolve the problems, didn’t say anything publicly, and recommended certifying the results anyway. (Excerpt from Votebeat Arizona.)