In an email exchange with The Arizona Sun Times this week, a Maricopa County Recorder’s office spokesperson may have unwittingly admitted that the county mishandled thousands of ballots from the 2020 general election that one watchdog groups says were accepted after the legal deadline.
Megan Gilbertson, the communications director for the Maricopa County Elections Department (MCED) – a department of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office – said that the department processed ballots by scanning them into the tabulating machines at MCED before transferring their custody the next day to Runbeck Election Services, which verifies their legitimacy with signature verification.
She stated, “Due to the large volumes of early ballots received Election Day, we are scanning in early ballots received by 7 p.m. on Election Day well into the next morning, which is why a transfer of custody document would have a date after Election Day.”
In an earlier email, Gilbertson noted that “early ballot envelope signatures that are cured would also be tracked and scanned after Election Day until the curing deadline. None of these ballots would be marked as rejected, as they were all received by the Elections Department prior to 7 p.m. on Election Day.”
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times
