Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer, second from right, and Pinal County Supervisor Jeffrey McClure, right, answer questions during a press conference Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in Florence./Oscar Perez/PinalCentral
By MARK COWLING and JODIE NEWELL PinalCebtral
Pinal County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey McClure has indicated that the county’s Election Director David Frisk faces removal following another failure in the voting system that occurred during Tuesday’s primary election.
When asked at a packed press conference Wednesday what kind of action the board could take, McClure responded by saying, “Well, a major screw-up like this, honestly I would say, you know, the removal of the director.”
His comments follow a major mistake made by Frisk’s department when municipal candidates were left off the majority of original ballots that were posted throughout the county. But that’s not the end of the issues.
Tuesday’s primary election saw polling stations run out of in-person ballots throughout the county. The problem was exacerbated by a slow count of municipal contest votes that saw the first numbers posted in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer joined McClure, who faced a wall of cameras at the old Pinal County courthouse.
Volkmer said he and other officials were well aware of the difficulties voters had faced and the county did everything it possibly could to address the ballot shortages. Volkmer said the county sent out almost 300,000 text messages to the community alerting them of the issue.
