A new report obtained by The Arizona Sun Times found that more than 18,000 absentee ballots counted in the 2022 election in Pima County alone had severely lacking or no chain-of-custody paperwork, meaning there is an inadequate record of the whereabouts or origins of the Tucson-area ballots.
Coincidentally in the same election cycle, Katie Hobbs edged out Kari Lake for the Governor’s office by just 17,117 votes.
After receiving and analyzing a trove of public records, two independent election integrity groups – The Pima Integrity Project (PIP) and CONELRAD Group – developed a study looking at the county’s handing of absentee ballots, specifically with regards to:
(1) Transferring ballots from the Pima County Recorder’s warehouse to the early voting sites;
(2) Transferring the drop-off ballots from the early voting sites to the ballot processing center;
(3) Transferring in-person ballots from the early voting sites to the ballot processing center; and,
(4) The delivery of ballots from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to the ballot processing center.
The administration of elections and the procedures county and state officials must follow are found in the state’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM). The statute that addresses the EPM, A.R.S. 16-452(C), states that “A person who violates any rule adopted pursuant to this section is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor.”
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