By Jen Fifield, Votebeat | AZ Capitol Times
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
Republican lawmakers in Arizona privately pressured county leaders across the state to count ballots by hand instead of using machines, according to previously unreported text messages.
The messages, obtained by Votebeat through public record requests, are a window into how state lawmakers are trying to leverage relationships with Republican county supervisors— who decide how to count ballots in their counties — to promote a practice that state officials have repeatedly said would be illegal.
And it highlights how lawmakers have turned to counties to try to change how ballots are counted after failing to change state laws.
In Mohave County, for example, messages show that Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter requested a vote on hand-counting ballots during the upcoming presidential election after state Sen. Sonny Borrelli, a fellow Republican who lives in the county, connected him with a lawyer who promised to represent the board free if necessary.
After Lingenfelter spoke to the lawyer, Borrelli checked back in. “When will you put this on the agenda for a vote,” Borrelli texted Lingenfelter. Lingenfelter replied with a screenshot of a meeting agenda for the next week, showing a scheduled vote.
In Pinal County, the day supervisors discussed hand-counting ballots in this year’s election, state Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican who represents parts of Pinal County, texted Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh, also a Republican, to assert that hand-counting all ballots was legal — something the Secretary of State’s Office and state Attorney General’s Office have said is not true.
“Don’t let them lie today,” Rogers wrote.
