- Good evening everyone and welcome to this Arizona PBS election special AZ votes 2024.

I'm your host, Heather Moore.

Tonight we're gonna take an in-depth look at the election process in Arizona and issues that have gotten us to a point in this nation and in our state where election integrity is constantly questioned, sometimes with violent threats in our live two hour special conducted before an audience at our studios here in downtown Phoenix, you'll hear from state and county election officials directly in the line of fire during what has been one of the most contentious periods in our nation's history.

David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Non-Profit Center for Election Innovation and research will speak with election officials.

And during the discussion we'll get questions from our audience as well as questions sent to us from you through social media.

Later in the show, we're gonna switch gears and in our second hour, Arizona Horizon host Ted Simons will speak with journalists who have been boots on the ground chronicling these election events in real time.

But first, right now we wanna take a look at how we got here with a report from producer Shauna Fisher and editor Jacob Glass - Play.

- The 2020 election was the most polarizing in recent memory.

Despite all of that, the voter turnout was the highest in our country's history.

According to the Census Bureau, 66% of Americans voted, and in Arizona the numbers were even higher.

Nearly 80% of registered voters showed up the highest number in two decades.

It ended with President Biden winning the state by a slim margin, only the third Democrat to do so in recent years and planted our state squarely in the middle of a hotly contested battle over results.

Despite President Biden winning the necessary 270 electoral votes and the popular vote, then President Trump refused to concede.

Instead, he claimed the election was rigged and results should not be certified.

- We've never lost an election.

We're winning this election - Soon after 11 alleged fake electors, all of them state Republicans signed documents declaring themselves Arizona's official presidential electors and that their votes were for Trump all pushed for Vice President Mike Pence to accept them as electors or no electors at all.

Currently those 11 alleged fake electors are all under investigation by the Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays.

On January 6th, 2021, Congress convened to certify the presidential results, but instead GOP members refused and called for a debate on alleged voter fraud, including in Arizona.

To this day, many Arizona Republican lawmakers and former President Trump still present false claims.

The election was rigged and have filed numerous lawsuits all have failed.

In March of 2021, the Arizona Senate Republican caucus led by President Karen Fan hired four firms to examine the 2020 ballots for Maricopa County.

The lead firm Cyber Ninjas had never done an audit before Senate Republicans reviewed the final audit report and concluded that President Biden received 360 additional votes and Trump lost another 261 votes.

In June of 2022, the house began its January 6th hearings, most notably Arizona lawmaker.

Rusty Bowers testified of the pressure by Trump's supporters demonstrating outside his home as well as by Trump himself and his attorney Rudy Giuliani.

To flip the outcome in Arizona, Mr. Bowers refused, - But you are asking me to do something against my oath and I will not break my oath.

- The January 6th committee concluded there was enough evidence to convict former President Trump and recommended the Department of Justice pursue criminal charges against him for obstruction of an official proceeding.

On August 1st, 2023, federal prosecutor Jack Smith announced the indictment of former President Trump, a first for a president.

- Today an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.

- That trial is on hold as the Supreme Court decides if a president is immune from prosecution for alleged crimes committed while they held office In 2022, the top six administrative offices in Arizona were on the ballot On election day, an issue with voting machines occurred, but the county recorders assert.

No voter was disenfranchised and everyone who wanted to vote was able to do so.

However, the results of Governor, secretary of State and Attorney General were all challenged by the losing GOP candidates, an independent investigation by former Arizona Supreme Court.

Justice Ruth McGregor identified the problems with the voting machines as equipment failure.

The paper could not withstand the heat of the machines, but concluded no one could have anticipated this issue and no voters were disenfranchised.

- And we are gonna turn the show over now to David Becker.

He is the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

David also serves as an election law expert for CBS News and he is also written a book with CBS's Chief Washington correspondent, major Garrett titled The Big Truth Upholding Democracy in the Age of The Big Lie.

Here now is David Becker.

- Thank you Heather and good evening everyone.

I founded my organization to make sure voters trust elections and election officials feel protected when doing their jobs.

Tonight I'm fortunate enough to talk to election officials from Maricopa County and the state of Arizona who know our, our elections work and are some of the best in the country.

They're key in implementing safe, secure, fair elections that voters can trust and yet many don't.

And our election officials feel the sting of their rebukes and violent threats fed by constant misinformation.

I'm really honored to be joined tonight by Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian fta, who oversees Arizona's elections and is the chief election official of the state of Arizona.

Also joining me, Maricopa County Recorder.

Steven Richer, whose office is responsible for conducting conducting elections in the state's largest county.

And also here is Republican Maricopa County supervisor Bill Gates, who has supervisor helps set county policies on elections.

I know both, all three of you really well.

I've gotten to know you over years.

I have to tell you, I work with election officials all over the country.

I don't think it's going too far to say that the three of you are inspirations to a lot of them.

As we've seen so much delegitimization of our election process over the last several years.

And all of you have pushed back constantly with truth and transparency.

I think about the 2020 election a lot.

And one of the things that strikes me as it somehow you and your colleagues, hundreds of thousands of election officials all over the country, somehow manage the highest turnout in American history in the middle of a global pandemic.

It's simply remarkable.

We should have thanked you and congratulated you for everything that got done.

And instead, as we've just seen and discussed, you and your colleagues have experienced abuse threats and harassment for three plus years.

You continue to face lies about the election process, efforts to get voters to doubt our process efforts that often feed into narratives that we're hearing from foreign adversaries that want us to distrust our democracy.

Secretary Fontes, I wanna start with you.

You've actually overseen elections at the county level and at the state level now you have unique experience, really remarkable experience.

Why should Arizona voters trust the process?

- Well first, David, thanks for having us and thanks for having this discussion and welcome to everyone.

The process is really more about the people and I think the people who do the work, actually lots of people right now all over Arizona are getting ready for election day tomorrow for our presidential preference election.

Those people are citizens just like you and everybody else here.

These people have taken an oath to follow the law and to move forward with the process of preserving our democracy.

They're the same folks who've been doing it year in year out in most cases for quite some time and in many cases for decades.

And what we found ourselves with is not a shifting of policy, not a shifting of players, but a shifting of the narrative.

And I think what we really have here are some of the best elections in the United States of America.

And I will point out that the 2020 election that we ran here in Maricopa County, bill was on the board at the time I was the county recorder.

Steven actually beat me in my reelection bid for that election to take.

His office was and is the single most highly scrutinized election in American history.

In fact, in the history of the globe, no election has ever seen so much scrutiny and yet we have zero evidence of anything that went wrong with it.

Our elections have been are and I believe will be safe and secure as long as we focus on the people who are running those elections.

- The link.

Yeah, I think that's a really key point about the people.

And it's interesting because you two did run against each other, Steven.

You were in a position where you stood up for the integrity of an election that you didn't run.

And Adrian, you stood up for the integrity of an election in 2020 that you lost - Because of that.

Very narrowly, David, - Very narrowly.

That sounds - Slide slide - And and it's true that that this is, these are, these are our neighbors, these are the people who run elections, are the parents of the kids our kids go to school with.

And the inability to kind of process and accept an election result where your candidate lost in a nation, in a state, in a county that is as closely divided as you can possibly imagine is still, I know somewhat baffling to the people who are doing this hard work day in and day out.

Steven, you actually manage a lot of the nuts and bolts of running an election in Maricopa County along with Bill and his colleagues on the board of supervisors.

Can you talk a little bit about why voters in your county and throughout should be confident about how elections are run?

- Right.

So I'm responsible for the early voting component and the voter registration component.

And I team with the board of supervisors, five member board, different partisan affiliations represented on that board and at the Secretary of state level and the 15 counties.

And I think that's the first reason why you can have confidence in the election system.

And this isn't just true of Maricopa County or true of Arizona.

It's true of all 8,000 plus voting jurisdictions in the United States.

That not one single one of them is just run by Republicans or just want run by Democrats.

They are bipartisan operations.

So one bipartisan, two transparent.

There are so many opportunities for people who want to know more about the system, to learn more about the system, both before the election or during the election.

You can be a worker at Maricopa County or any of the counties, you can be a partisan poll watcher.

We have people who are watching our voting locations 26 days before the election day.

It's like watching paint dry.

But we have Republican party observers there, democratic party observers there.

And then lastly, trust, but but verify.

Nobody says, oh, just trust the machines 'cause they, they look pretty good or trust Adrian because he seems like a nice guy.

And so for every single step of the process, there are tests before and after.

And I think one that especially gets to the core of some of the allegations from the 2020 election is with respect to what the board oversees is tabulation.

And that's that tests are done before by the Secretary of State's office overseen by the political parties after the election, the political parties do a hand count audit of the tabulated results.

And that's true of all processes throughout the election.

So bipartisan, transparent and tested.

And I think that those are the core building blocks for why you can trust elections, not just in Arizona because we're facing this maybe heavier than other states just because we have such close elections.

But we know that many of our colleagues have faced this.

And while some of their elections might be a little bit different, they all have those three same core pre principles - That, that's such an important point.

I think it's one of the things that often gets lost in some of the conversations is we have all of these different election jurisdictions all over the country.

You have multiple counties here in Arizona.

You've got different states with different rules.

Sometimes some ju some states have well over a thousand election jurisdictions in them.

But there are so many common elements that ensure voters, regardless of where they are, regardless of where their election official has to be republic, it happens to be Republican or democratic, that the transparency and verification really plays such a big role.

Bill, I'm, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about this.

'cause one of the things I've seen from all three of you, and you've perhaps exemplified this better than anyone, is the, the way you embrace transparency, the way you really want to bring people in and show them the process and engage with people who might disagree with you or have doubts.

Can you talk a little bit about that and how that's been a part of your job?

Yeah, - You know, I thought the package in the beginning did a good job of, of discussing some of the questions that are out there, right?

And, and that's fair for people to ask questions, to have concerns.

There is in a lot of ways this process, people might not necessarily see all steps in it.

So we could have, you know, hidden the corner and just said, trust us.

And we went the other way as a county, the board, Steven, Adrian all said, we need to be transparent.

And so particularly in the 2022 election we had dealt with the 2020 election, we knew that the eyes of the world were gonna be honest.

And so we held over a dozen press conferences.

Stephen and I were, were in many of those press conferences where not only did we explain the processes, but we actually started to anticipate some of the conspiracies that, that were gonna be, you know, presented out there by others who would like to cause a discord.

And so we said, when you hear this, here's what's really going on.

And also, election security was something else that was very important.

We wanted people to feel secure at the vote centers.

And then also for our election workers who do this great work, you know, our aunts, our grandmothers who work on this to know that they are safe.

And so we're fortunate to have the sheriff stand up with us, Paul Penzone, and talk about the protections that are in place because we don't want one person to refrain from voting because they feel like they're not secure.

- Yeah, I mean this is the security aspect and the verifiability of the elections is really important.

It's really been at the heart of some of the disinformation that Arizonans have been subjected to.

But sometimes we don't focus on something else about Arizona and that's, that it's exceptionally easy to vote in Arizona for an eligible voter to get on the list, to get a ballot to cast it at a time of their choosing is, is really easy.

My, my organization, the Center for Election Innovation and Research is gonna release a report tomorrow about how early and mail voting have really evolved since 2000 and really spread to almost all of the states.

And most voters, the vast majority have access to options to vote early or by mail well in advance of election day.

But this is something that Arizonans have had for a long time.

Yeah.

And really in many ways led the nation in this.

And it was really bipartisan.

It was something that was embraced by both parties as a way to increase access and also probably get their own voters out.

Right.

Adrian, I you've been involved with this for quite some time at di at different levels.

Can you talk a little bit about how easy it is for Arizonans to vote and, and maybe talk directly to Arizona's voters who might be on the fence about participating in an election, about how it's so convenient to take, take, take advantage of the vote here.

- Well, you're a hundred percent right that Arizona has been at the forefront of election administration innovation for voters for a long time.

We started, no excuse absentee voting back in 19 91, 92 timeframe.

We were the first state to adopt online voter registration.

We have expanded our use of vote centers, which didn't start in Maricopa County by the way.

We, under my administration, we started it here.

Steven has expanded it, but we, we got that from Yavapai County, Arizona, deep Red Prescott area, Yavapai County.

And so all across Arizona, our voters have been able to vote with ease and they've been able to even track their own ballots, which is technology that we are now launching across the state, which Maricopa County has had for some time.

And Pima County has had for a couple of years, Arizona's voters I think have a really interesting space in, in the political world.

But we, at least I do separate the political stuff from the election administration stuff.

Right.

It's, it, it's sort of like these are the rules of the game over here and, and these are the teams, let the teams play it out.

But the rules are pretty solid.

And they've been very pro voter for a long time.

David and my, my my predecessor actually Helen Purcell, was at the vanguard of this really making early voting available, advocating to make sure that that voters could get their ballot in the mail, sit and contemplate their choices, get the signature verification done well, which is happening a lot.

And by the way, the folks that train our signature verifiers are the same folks that train the FBI signature folks.

Right?

And, and so we have all these systems and all these redundancies that we, that I'm sure we'll speak more of, but just know this, Arizona voters we're just like you.

We wanna make sure that the game is solid, that the rules are followed, that the law is followed.

And I think what people can take a little bit of comfort in is sort of the record of 2020 and 2022, the opening package that Bill mentioned, talked about all of these lawsuits and all of these challenges.

And you'd think that after all of those attacks, something could be found that was wrong if there was, and, and, and it's a testament to those people that I mentioned earlier, all those election workers that do their level best every day to make sure that our elections run well and they do it for Arizona's voters.

I'm, I'm very, very proud of the election administration family in Arizona.

And I think all Arizonans should be that proud.

- And, and you should be proud also in the bipartisan tradition of those individuals.

There are so many Republicans and Democrats who have come together to stand for those principles, as you mentioned.

And their work has withstood that over three years of scrutiny and all of the court cases and all of the opportunities and defamation cases for people to bring evidence to prove that the election was allegedly stolen as they alleged.

And we sit here now, well over 1200 days since that election, there's still not a shred of evidence that's pre been presented to any court anywhere in the country that there was anything that would call into question the outcome of the 2020 election.

And that's actually really remarkable because as, as you pointed out there was, there's never been so much scrutiny on an election, probably in the history of the world.

- Well, and, and, and the, the, the scrutiny, not withstanding, the people that actually do this in a bipartisan way really want Arizona's voters to get engaged.

When I was sitting in, in Stevens seat in Maricopa County, I wanted to have a, a, a mobile van that we could move around the county or two or three to register voters and get them voting.

And it wasn't the Democratic Maricopa County recorder that made it happen.

It was the Republican Pinal County recorder who had the first mobile voter registration and voting van happened in Arizona.

This election administration family is a bipartisan B pro voter.

And that's one of the reasons why I, I, I really think people should get more engaged and get past the doubts because it's, it's just arizonans who are doing this and, and, and, and the workers that are making it happen really, really deserve that fair - Shake.

Yeah.

And, and you three are all not just engaged with election officials in Arizona, but also nationally and, and that that goes beyond Arizona's borders, right?

The professionalism, the, the commitment to transparency regardless of your party, you know, is something we see nationwide.

I'd like to ask the two of you, Steven, and Bill, what are the protections in place here in Arizona?

And you also know what happens nationwide, but Arizona's a great example of it to ensure that only eligible voters can get on the voter list.

Only eligible voters can receive a ballot that they receive only one ballot, that that ballot is returned by them.

How can you explain to Arizona voters how confident you are in, in that process?

- Well, sure, I, - How much time do we have?

- We got plenty.

Go for it.

- Come come take a tour.

We, we do lots of tours and some of you have joined us on some of those tours.

So a lot goes into elections, but some of the core principles I've already laid out.

But I would say you have to be a registered voter in Arizona to be able to vote.

So it starts there and you can't just register your dog.

It has to be a real person.

We check that with the Department of Vital Statistics.

We check that with the Social Security Administration, with the Motor vehicle division.

We make sure that you're in an actual potable location.

We send you a voter registration card.

If it comes back as undeliverable, we can't put you on the voter rolls.

We then send you for every election.

If you're an early voter by mail, then we'll send you a ballot packet.

If that ballot packet can't get delivered, then we're gonna move you eventually to inactive status.

If for whatever reason, somebody calls in and says, I didn't get my ballot packet because maybe, I don't know, someone swiped it, got to the mailbox before I did.

Heaven forbid, if we ever noticed that in large scale, we'd of course alert the police and we would investigate.

But we've never had any instances of that happening in large scale.

Once you get that ballot packet, you have a specially assigned envelope, that green return envelope that is assigned to you as a voter.

It has a barcode, it loads a vote to your profile as soon as you send it back.

So if you tried to show up in person and vote, you wouldn't be able to vote in person.

If you tried to send back, if you said, I spilled coffee on my first ballot, send me another one.

If you tried to send back both, only one of those barcodes would be activate, would be active.

We also do signature verification.

We do signature verification by humans.

In fact, in fact, a lot of people are working on it right now as we speak.

And it's a labor intensive process.

And by the way, that is not necessarily typical of other Western states that will use software to do signature verification.

But we do signature verification through multiple levels.

Only then will you open the envelope and it'll go to a bipartisan team that will take it out.

And then I've already talked about some of the security built into the tabulation system.

But, so there are layers and layers and of course all of this is documented through a chain of custody.

And this process has been iterative.

This process didn't start with Steven and Bill, this process didn't start with Adrian, this process, you know, it's hard to believe that there was something before Helen.

I was gonna say, but it might have started Helen, but so I I, I do think that we are getting better and better.

And just to, to, to Adrian and David's point, I, since taking office, I have not seen any suggestion that there is significant voter fraud or significant voter disenfranchisement in Arizona.

And I sometimes get sort of a mixed reception on that.

And I'm like, that's a great thing that we, that there, and that is not true of American history.

We, we know that there have been periods of mass voter disenfranchisement.

We know there was periods of machine politics in which the vote was, was rigged.

I actually think despite the narrative going like this, elections in the United States are getting better and better and better and more verifiable and more verifiable.

And you've played a part in that.

We're playing some parts in that in Arizona, but others after we leave are gonna play more parts in that.

And that's, that's awesome.

- Yeah.

And, and one thing David, I'd like to add to that is we're talking about 2024 and what the experience is gonna be for the voter is not only is it safe and secure and verifiable, but we've also made it a better experience.

We've been very focused on customer service first as it relates to the options.

I would argue that in Arizona, voters have more options than they have in any other state.

In the union, you wanna vote early in your robe at home, you can do that.

You wanna vote in person early, you can do that.

You wanna vote on election day in person, you love going and taking your kids with you.

You can do that.

And then in addition to that, some work that Adrian and Steven have, have worked along with the board is being able to track this in real time.

We're used to getting a lot of information on our phones, text messages.

Now when you're, I'm sure many of you here in the audience have had that experience.

If you've signed up for the service, your ballot is being prepared, you're getting a text message, your ballot is being mailed to you, you get a text now, you send it in and they receive it, you get another text message.

And I find that that's something that people really appreciate.

We understand that people are busy, they don't have a lot of time to mess around with this.

And so we've really done things to make it a more positive experience for our voters as well.

- Yeah.

And and that's really important.

I think we often forget that the only time in a four year period where more than half of eligible voters actually show up to vote is a presidential election.

We're gonna see that in November, but we never hit 50%, pretty much never hit 50% even in these, in, in other elections.

And so demonstrating this commitment to customer service is, I think, really important.

That feedback loop can keep people engaged and hopefully get more of them participating.

One of the things we're gonna talk about disinformation a little while, I want to get into that much more broadly.

'cause Arizona has been really unfortunately, ground zero for some of the lies and rumors that have, you know, been spread on social media.

But there's one claim in particular that I've been fascinated by, which is the claim that it's taking too long to count the ballots.

This is something we hear all the time, we hear that, you know, we always knew who won on election night.

Why is it taking days now as if we forgot about the Florida election of 2000, you know, as if we forgotten about the fact that the constitution itself says that, for instance, the presidential electors don't meet until about a month and a half after the election.

So there's enough time to count the ballots and confirm the results.

Let's talk a little bit, and I'll, I'll start with you again, bill, and then go to you, Steven, talk a little bit about what you're doing to address the legitimate concerns about trying to count the ballots as quickly as you can while also accounting for integrity.

You want to do it right, it's better to get it right than fast, but maybe you, you, you might be moving a little bit towards both directions, - Bill.

Yeah, I mean, th this is an important issue to folks.

We understand that there're concerned that it takes so long for the networks to call races in Arizona.

That's not because we're doing anything wrong at the different counties.

It's not that we're breaking the law, it's simply that these races are extremely close.

That's number one.

Number two, we don't have all the ballots in to ta, we cannot tabulate all of the ballots on election night.

Again, we're not doing anything wrong.

In fact, we're doing everything right.

For example, in the 2022 election, we had 290,000 ballots mail-in ballots dropped off on election day at the polling places.

We are not in a position to tabulate them on our side of the house because Steven's team needs to get those in.

He needs to go through the signature verification.

They do a wonderful job of it.

But again, and I can't underline this enough, if I have a choice between speed and accuracy, I'm gonna pick accuracy all day long.

- And, and, and to be fair also, I mean, Steven's team can't start verifying and you can't start counting until you have the ballot.

And if the ballot is returned late in the day on election day, that process is going to start at that time.

And so getting, depending on how, what - The volume is, it might take some time.

Yeah, a absolutely.

But I do want people to know that it is, that is that the goal of this team, the board of supervisors and and Steven's team in Maricopa County, that we will have 99% of the ballots counted by Friday afternoon.

And so again, with all of the, the different legal requirements that we have, that is a goal that we believe that we can achieve.

But we have also taken measures in Maricopa County.

We have invested funds to expand our operations at Maricopa County to speed this up.

But the reality is that a lot of these laws that could really speed up the process that's in the hands of the state legislature, and I don't mean to criticize them at all, but they have decided between the, the state legislature and the governor to not make certain changes that, you know, may have sped things up.

But within working within the confines of law that we have making the investments that we have, I'm confident that we'll be able to hit that goal.

- Steven, do you have anything to add to, to that?

- Well, yeah.

Okay.

So you can change the law.

And by the way, there's not consensus here.

And that's something that can be debated.

Should you roll up the early voting deadline such that you can have a higher percentage or should you accommodate that convenience of being able to drop it off until 7:00 PM on election night?

There's differing policy, as long as we all agree and we understand the system, that's time, that's fine.

We haven't changed the law.

Two, you can change voter behavior.

So Lindsay knows in our household, you better get that ballot out within 48 hours of it being on our kitchen household.

That's, that's the rule in our household.

If you all did that, then we can have 99% of ballots available at 8:00 PM on election night.

So if you have fully formed thoughts about say presidential candidates, then I'd encourage you to get your ballots back well before today.

But so, so that's another way.

And then the thing that we can control is, or we can at least make some improvements on, is really credit to the board of supervisors who have allocated a lot of resources to just being able to expand our facilities to throw more bodies on it, such that when that rush of ballots comes, we don't compromise the integrity of the system by saying, oh, don't just don't signature verify it.

And heavens knows, lots of people have accused Maricopa County of just not doing signature verification, but then they simultaneously say, you should go faster, which is a little bit rich.

But so, so we have said we're not gonna compromise on that, but we're gonna be able to throw more bodies on it.

And that means we have more space for this one.

We have more people who are gonna be working that late night shift.

But it's still, look, if, if it's going to be a race that's decided by fewer than 600 votes as our attorney general contest was in 2022, like, I'm sorry, but we're gonna have to get to 99.9% before you can call that race.

Because if the last batch of ballots comes in and it breaks heavily for the other candidate who's not winning, then the, and then the media stations are, are gonna wait to make call.

And that can be frustrating because someone will say, you know, it's different in Florida.

- Adrian.

Yeah, David, I think one of the things that we're forgetting here is Maricopa County has actually counted its ballots, generally speaking in just about the same period of time for a long time.

But it has grown incredibly over that same period of time.

And the number of ballots that have to be counted has also grown incredibly.

So that's one thing I think folks need to pay attention to.

We actually are, particularly in Maricopa County, counting those ballots a lot faster than we were.

Here's another factor that's important, it's a lot more important to folks because as you mentioned, the margins are so much tighter.

You know, when Senator McCain may, he rest in peace years ago was winning elections by 25 points, right?

Everybody just kind of knew where it was gonna go.

But as we did also understand the projections from those times were that the politics in Arizona is gonna change, the people are gonna change a little bit.

And as the margins narrow and narrow and narrow, you can't just mathematically predict these things as quickly as possible, even though it's taking about the same amount of time to count, way more ballots.

So when you take the actual factors into account, Maricopa County is doing a pretty doggone good job.

And, and and I, and kudos to the board and to Steven and his operation, they're doing even better than when I was the county recorder.

And that's, that's saying something so, but, but I think we gotta have the whole thing.

I think we gotta put the whole thing into context when we talk about this particular issue.

Go ahead Steve.

I would say - This is just one of the ways in which the federalized system actually is working against us.

Because in Eastern states, you will have almost everyone vote in person.

Meaning that at the end of the night it'll be, the memory drive will be removed and all those votes will be loaded up in western United States, we're actually faster than Utah, we're actually faster than Oregon, we're actually faster than Washington, we're actually faster than California because those are heavy mail states, some of which allow you to return your ballot actually as long as you post market on election night.

Now what's different than those states?

It's that Oregon, Washington, those are usually states where you can call the presidential contest with 60% in.

So those are the states in which we sort of measure ourselves against.

And I think we're, we did well in 22 and 20, but I think we're gonna do even better in 24.

The, - I'm so glad you raised that 'cause it's exactly the point I wanted to raise at 8 0 1 Pacific Time on November 5th, 2024, all of the media organizations are gonna call California, right when the polls close.

California will have probably around 99% of their ballots still left to count at that moment.

By the way, a lot of states are gonna have a lot of ballots to left to count at that moment, right when the polls close.

The only thing, the only reason people in California think they're counting ballots faster when it actually takes them a bit longer, that's a policy choice they've made is because the margins are huge.

Which brings us to perception and how much it governs so much of the work that you do.

Now, despite the fact the reality is as strong and secure and accessible, as we've talked about, the perception by some having been fueled by lies and rumors and false claims for so long is the exact opposite.

And I think we watched the video at the beginning that talked about how those lies fueled problems for Arizona for quite some time in the past.

I want to talk a little bit about what we expect for 2024, what we expect that domestic actors perhaps losing candidates or candidates who think they're going to lose, and even our foreign adversaries who are highly incentivized to get us to de-legitimize our own election and, and de-legitimize the idea of democracy, what they might be doing in the lead up to to to November, 2024.

And Adrian, you've been leading a lot on this nationally as well as in Arizona.

I'd like to go to you first and talk about what you're a little bit worried about and what you're doing to prepare.

- Well, first and foremost, I think we have to understand that our adversaries, both foreign and domestic, they just wanna see a mess.

They want us to mistrust one another because our society, the American Republic, this great experiment is built on faith.

It's built on a civic faith that we have among one another, that that officials are going to follow their oath, that they're gonna do the job that they've been tasked with.

But that applies to everybody.

Everybody in this room on your way over here, you had faith that when the light turned green, the other person wasn't gonna come through the intersection.

You might've been a little cautious When you go to a restaurant, you have faith that the health inspections have gone relatively well.

When we do all of our lives, we operate on faith.

And so our adversaries want us to mistrust one another.

They want us to be divided, particularly our foreign adversaries.

So we gotta look at their motivation first.

Weakening the United States of America is the motive.

Strengthen the United States of America means we believe in one another and we have faith.

And so it doesn't matter if it's mis diss or malformation, it doesn't matter if it's artificial intelligence exploding the capacity for these messages to get out there so much quicker, penetrating that much deeper into our awareness.

What really matters is the reason behind all of it.

The things that worry me are that we might as Americans lose faith in one another because of the lies, because of the misinformation and disinformation, because of the conspiracy theories that have been proven over and over and over again to be untrue.

So I I, that's a little bit broad, but at the end of the day, what bothers me the most is the fact that so many Americans are succumbing to the purposeful destruction of the civic faith that we have in each other as Americans.

- Right.

And as we talked about that faith is reinforced by actual transparent, verifiable policies that people can observe either as observers or especially, and you guys talked about this as poll workers, like volunteer and see it from the inside and see all the things that are going on.

Now you've also led some efforts to kind of prepare for disinformation and things that might come to Arizona even nationwide.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

'cause I find what you're doing fascinating.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So if you're familiar with law enforcement or military tabletop exercises, you get a bunch of folks together and you go through what would be the normal activity and then you do what's called injects and you set it's different circumstances in, it's sort of like role playing.

It's like Dungeons and Dragons for election administrators.

Why'd you look at me?

I don't, I know it ain't Hogwarts, but it'll get close.

In any event, we assembled over 200 election administrators and folks attached to the activities from across the entire state of Arizona in December of 2023 with the help of Maricopa County loan to some equipment.

We had a whole bunch of people together, election administrators, county administrators, we had law enforcement, we had some of our vendors were there, we had national partners.

There were observers from the Department of Justice and congressional observers as well.

And we put them through a tabletop exercise.

Two parts of which one was the several months leading up to election day through some injects in so that people would kind of do some disaster planning of their own, figure out who they're gonna communicate with, where they were gonna go for certain resources and how to react to certain uncertainties, if you will.

The second part was an election day scenario, which was a little bit more exciting.

And during the course of all of this, we had experts in artificial intelligence create a deepfake of myself, of another election administrator in Arizona of one of our security personnel.

Some of them were voice only, some of them were video.

Some of them had that other election administrator speaking in Mandarin and in German.

So we could show folks, these are some of the potential threats that we have, have discussions about the way that we might deal with them together.

But we're not just stopping there, we're continuing, we're gonna have a tabletop exercise across Arizona in different locations for law enforcement agencies.

We're gonna create one that's gonna happen in early May for members of the media so they can see and figure out how to communicate with trusted sources, election administration so that we can react properly.

We've gotta be prepared for everything and that means we've gotta be prepared for anything.

- Did your deepfake beat Steven in 2020?

Wow, Dave.

Sorry.

- Yes, but it was very, it was a very narrow, very - Narrow.

So I often think about the, The election threat environment as in two broad phases.

One, the phase leading up to the close of polls and the phase after the close of polls to delegitimize the outcome.

And you both are going to be intimately involved with both those phases.

Do you have any particular concerns about disinformation that might be directed particularly at voters in the lead up to the election?

I, I sometimes worry about disinformation that might be led, might mislead them out about the process, about how to participate.

And then if you have any thoughts on the post-election disinformation environment, what that might mean.

- So, you know, one thing that I would add is, is that, you know, we have so many different sources of information out there on the internet, social media, and we don't know what the intent is of these people who are posting there.

And so that's why I'm really trying to drive people to trusted sources.

I think that is extremely important.

I can tell you we were involved in a exercise with AI chatbots and we know what we found from that is that a lot of that election information was wrong.

And so for us here at Maricopa, go to marico maricopa.gov, listen to those trusted sources where we can provide that information.

I'm particularly concerned about the deep fakes like Adrian talked about.

And so we're ready for that.

We're focused on it as well.

We've hired an AI expert at Maricopa County to work with our IT team to make sure that we understand what's going on out there and we can protect the voters.

- Steven, do you have any thoughts?

- No, I I, I, I guess I don't think about it too much.

We, we know, we all know it's gonna happen.

We try to get as much good information out there 'cause we can control that and we respond, we respond when it gets to a certain level, we certainly try hard.

I guess I would just say, you know, if, if there's, we, we, we've tried a lot of stuff.

I, I think that Bill and I have just, you know, tried to throw everything at the, the wall.

But if there's anything that you think of that would improve or you, the voter think of that would improve your confidence, we really wanna help.

And now's the time because we've, you know, this will be a big election in Arizona.

We'll figure prominently in here.

But if there's anything, even if you're starting at a two and we can only get you into a four out of 10, we'd love to do it.

So if you have any ideas, except for TikTok, we might not be able to do TikTok, but if you have any ideas outside of that for things that would actually improve, if you're somebody who's honest with yourself and you're like, no, I'm, I'm lost and you know, like I'm never gonna have confidence in it, then that saddens all three of us.

But there's not much that we can do.

But if you come to us and say, I'm a, you know, good faith interested in, I have these doubts, then, you know, bill and I, we, a lot of those people are our friends and continue to be our friends and, and I don't know anyone in our elections community who would say, well, you know, no, just, you can't, you know, go on, go on Reddit or whatever instead.

So if there's stuff that we can do, let us know.

We're always looking to innovate and spend a real priority.

And - Maybe I can just follow up, you know, Stephen and I are Republicans and I want to talk to the Republicans out there.

We understand that people have concerns and it's okay that that doesn't, that doesn't make you a bad person.

But we, what we would ask is that you have an open mind, you have open ears, you ask us those questions, we'll do what we can to respond to those.

And I have no problem at all.

If people are seeing problems, we wanna know about 'em.

For years, I actually worked as a election day Republic lawyer for the Republican party, and I was the one going into seeing if fraud is going on and if people have examples and evidence, we want them to go to court.

But when it's done, when the court has ruled, it has to be over and people have to start accepting the results.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I hope, you know, I I, maybe I came into this a little naive, you would probably say.

So as far as some of the things, but when, when I first took office Bill and I would talk to our Republican friends who at that point I thought, well, it's just a matter of more information.

And the number one thing they said at that time was Tabulation Dominion in particular, tabulation, tabulation.

And the county led by the board of supervisors didn't have to, but they called in two independent certified elections technologies experts to spend two weeks with the tabulation equipment.

And so if there's stuff like that, but we've gotta have people coming in as good faith actors, I have concerns about the tabulation equipment.

Okay, if we do this, will that help?

Yes, that'll help then.

Great.

Then we can do that all day long.

But tell us where and come to it with good faith.

- Yeah, I think one of the other things, if I could just kind of piggyback on here, is really an understanding of the basics is not super easy in these very complicated systems because particularly in a county like Maricopa, it's huge.

You're talking about millions of ballots coming in and all of what needs to sup, what, what needs to happen to support that.

Generally speaking in Arizona, however, I think one of the critical components is that the voter pays attention to the basics.

What are the really basic things that election administrators in Arizona do?

And Stephen did a great job at the top of the show really counting out those principles.

When we stick to the basics, we're gonna be in good shape so we can talk all day about misinformation and trust and all these other things.

But those election administrators in all 15 of our counties are working on the basics.

They're training up for the basics, bringing those new folks in.

And we do it constantly.

You know, an election cycle for us is about 720 days long, which is only 20 days of a break at some point after an election, and then we start it all over again.

This is important for folks to know, we take care of the basics and we'd like folks to really reach in and figure out what it is that they're questioning.

Example, paper ballots.

Well, guess what?

Arizona's been an all paper ballot state for a long time.

Voting machines, there is no such thing.

We've got tabulators, we had scanners, we've got all kinds of things, but there's no such thing as a voting machine in Arizona.

These sorts of things are the basics.

And so we're really hoping folks will reach out in Maricopa, it's maricopa.gov for the rest of the state.

You can go to arizona.vote and and learn, and that's what we're really hoping folks - Will do.

I know we're running short of time right now.

You three are an inspiration to me and to a lot of people who work in this space.

I know a lot of those people who you've met also inspire you and, and to continue that work.

So thank you for what you're doing.

Arizona's voters are gr are, are lucky to have the three of you.

Thanks.

Thanks to all of you.

Thank you.

Thank - You David.

- I'll be back to you - Gentlemen.

Excellent information, great discussion.

There you are watching Arizona PBS special AZ votes 2024, where we have been speaking with election officials about the issues that they face and how they have been working to run fair, efficient elections.

I'm your host, Heather Moore, and we're gonna take a quick break right now.

When we come back, we're gonna have the second hour of our show and that's when we're gonna hear from our local journalists who have been covering our elections over the past few years.

And we are gonna hear their take on elections problems.

- You are watching Arizona PBSA member supported community service of Arizona State University.

- Good evening everyone, and welcome back to the second half of our Arizona PBS two hour special AZ votes 2024.

I'm Heather Moore.

In this special, we are taking a look at our elections problems and how we got to the point where elections are not trusted by a certain segment of our electorate, despite the best efforts of our election officials, and we just heard from them.

Next, we're gonna turn to reporters who've been covering our election problems as they happened.

Arizona Horizon host and managing editor, Ted Simons will now speak with three journalists who have spent years covering our elections.

10.

- Great, thank you Heather.

And tonight we are indeed joined by three local journalists who have workeded to better inform the public about Arizona's elections.

Some of these journalists have face backlash for their efforts to report what is really going on amid a relentless tide of misinformation from a variety of sources.

Joining us now, Jen Fifield of Vote Beat Jim, small of the Arizona Mirror and Mary Jo Petzel of the Arizona Republic az central.com panel.

Good to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining us and we're following a great discussion from state and local election leaders and officials regarding so many different aspects of the election aspects that as journalists you gotta cover, you gotta have some handle on.

Jen, we'll start with you are considering everything that has happened hither and yon.

Are you covering things?

Are you doing it differently this year?

- You know, I think this year it's gonna be about unapologetic honesty, right?

If things go wrong, they go wrong.

You say it.

If things go right, you say it.

You don't allow lies to spread quickly.

You just take 'em and you say the truth.

I feel like we've learned, Arizona journalists have learned how important it is to do that.

And we're better prepared.

We know more about elections to do that this time.

- The surprise element shouldn't be there.

This go around, should it?

Oh, well.

Oh, Mary Jo disagrees.

Please.

There's, - There's always gonna be a surprise.

I mean, something's going to happen.

As the previous panel talked about.

I mean, you know, the elections are run by humans.

There are errors that happen.

They're not intentional necessarily, I mean, hard to prove that they're intentional, but I mean, I expect that there would be a surprise.

- Yeah, and when I meant surprise, I meant disinformation, surprise.

I meant things being said and accusations being made.

I mean, better prepared Jen this go around for that.

- I think so.

I think that we've at least got a better grasp of how elections work.

You know, the county's been doing tours for media, they've been doing monthly press conferences for, what, four years now.

So I feel like everyone knows kind of what's coming for them.

- Jim, from 2022 and 2020 from these elections, what did you learn?

What lessons did you learn as a journalist?

- I, I think that we learned first and foremost, just we, we, we learned how these lives spread.

We see them in real time.

I mean, I remember in 2020 sitting, we were working from home for the election, and I, I remember sitting at my kitchen table doing, covering the election, and we started seeing videos about Sharpies and, and, and it, it happened on Twitter and it was on Facebook, and then it was suddenly everywhere.

And within about an hour, we just said, okay, well we need to, we need to write a story about this.

Not because something's actually happening, because it was pretty obvious something wasn't happening.

But to go to basically try to get to the bottom of it and say, okay, what is happening?

What are people claiming and what, what is the reality actually of what's, what's going on?

Because we were aware as journalists that the, the county was using Sharpies and that they had talked about it.

And it was not a message, I don't think that had gotten out to the public very well and, and clearly, like Jen and MaryJo were saying that they're trying to do a much better job now of reaching out to the public and not just putting a statement on a website and letting it be.

We saw how things really take a life of their own.

And even if you're able to quickly jump on it and, and debunk some of this stuff, it still carries on.

We're still hearing about Sharpies four years later, which is kind of wild to think of, you know, that people are so committed to, to things like that.

And, - And, but as a journalist, you have to be somewhat skeptical of everything.

And that includes claims that you might initially somewhere in the back of your mind say, come on, we're, we're, I can't go too deep with this.

This is, this is foolishness.

Sharpies wasn't foolishness.

It was a story that went on for quite a while.

Lesson learned.

- I think we see how these things escalate.

I think we see that, you know, it was, it was almost funny at the time, what are all these claims about Sharpies?

But now we know that those have been in, in lawsuits, in attempts to, you know, block election results.

And also I think of like the Dropbox box watchers, you know, that was a group that wanted to, started out, I think, almost good intention.

They wanted to watch over drop boxes and then people showed up armed and with guns and body armor.

And so we, we see, have seen multiple times now how these things can escalate over time.

- Jen, I want you to talk about this, this sovereign citizen, this, this group that served the board of supervisors here recently.

That's again, something that I think years ago you would go, okay, whatever, not whatever anymore.

They, they, they've served them with.

What do they serve them with, by the way?

- Well, first, this is another example of how things escalate.

We've had protests at these supervisors meetings for months now.

I think that this particular group has moved in, in the last month to cause a disturbance, perhaps because they know it's a venue they can't do that.

They can get on tv.

They're trying to draw attraction to themselves.

This is a group that believes in common law.

They don't believe in, in our laws.

They believe that, you know, every person has a right to do things and not be face our government's consequences, maybe their governments.

And so they serve them with papers telling them that they should, they violated their oath and they need to admit that and pay them millions of dollars.

And so, you know, it sounds, you know, Jim's laughing, but this is, this has caused an escalation of security that's public taxpayer money going into security surrounding these meetings.

And it's gonna continue probably until after the election.

So it's not so, you know, it's something to take seriously.

- Yeah.

It's something to take seriously, Jim.

No, - No, no.

It, the, the, yeah.

I, I, I think when things move from that online sphere into the real world, and I think that that's, you know, when we talk about escalation, that's what we've seen a lot of, right?

I mean, that's what we saw.

I mean, most visibly on January 6th, where things moved from the online talk about so, and elections and, and about what was going on it in county ballots into, into something terrible.

And, and we've, we see that in, in terms of protests.

We, we've, all of us, I think, have covered a lot of this protests, you know, around the county elections.

And, you know, a group like this is, is a prime example of that.

I mean, it, the claims and the things that they're talking about are, I think, patently, you know, kind of out there, right?

Like, I, I think to most people, they'd hear that and go that they're petitioning, redress from a government they don't believe exists and has any control over them.

I, I, you know, like all of it kind of doesn't really make logical sense, but you have to be concerned.

And I, you know, and I think that clearly the county is, I mean, you look at the security measures they've implemented and, you know, reading some of the, you know, the coverage of it.

I think, you know, the Washington Post had a, had a really big story on it today, all about the, the, the, the fear, you know, that really is kind of permeating through the, and what they're afraid that this group might either themselves do or kind of be a harbinger of for other groups that are gonna show up to do, you know, different and maybe, maybe more extreme things - Is, is there fear among journalists who are covering elections and have to write about election rigging and point out what is and what is not fact, - I think in with some, yeah, there's some hesitancy about, you know, about that and how to, how to deal with such threats.

I mean, basically try to escalate it within your own, I mean, I work for a big organization so we can escalate it up to, you know, to the higher levels of bureaucrats, but if there is fear, it doesn't stop you from doing what you gotta do.

Yes.

I mean, we're there to tell the story and, and put out the facts and too - Bad.

Yeah.

Neither fear nor favor, but gets your attention, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

I mean, I think all of us have felt it since, you know, 2020, this escalation of, you know, we're part of the deep state, we're contributing to the problem and all of the threats being directed at individuals.

It just makes you take more precautions in your life.

But you know that, you know, you're there to tell the truth and that's why you got into this - At the inevitable claims of election rigging that will be coming up here in elections forward.

We know it's going to happen in some way, shape, or form the level we're not quite sure.

But when it comes to covering these stories, Jim, how do you ex what do you do?

Is it just the facts or can, can you put some context in here to try to remind folks that it, this, what didn't happen, that claim simply how many, how many different ways can you say that isn't true?

- I don't know.

I feel like every time I feel like we've reached the end of that ink, well, we keep finding more new ways to say it because we keep having to write these stories.

So it, it's important.

I, I mean, I think that that that context of, of explaining, you know, kind of how we got to where we are and, and what some of the background is and, and how, you know, we've seen, you know, dozens and dozens of these, of lawsuits, of, of attempts, of claims that have all gotten tossed out.

I mean, I think that that is important for people to be reminded of, whether they take that information, you know, our, our, our job, our job is to, you know, essentially figure out what's going on, write the truth as close as we can get to it in, in the moment, and put it out there for people to, to take in.

And at that point, you know, what they choose to do with that information and, and with the reporting that we're able to do, you know, is, is really up to them.

- Well, the context is really important, and Jim, as you were talking before we came on the air about this latest lawsuit from, or appeal from Kerry Lake and Mark Finchem to the US Supreme Court in their case, that the election machines are all rigged, as you pointed out.

And it's very important to remember this, that you don't introduce new information in an appeal.

I mean, this thing's gonna get tossed on its ear in probably in no time, but it's important to point that out.

And if they've got new information, then I guess give us a new lawsuit.

For those - Of you please, - I think that, you know, one thing is that has gotten journalists into trouble is, is like breathless reporting to say this is false without being able to like, explain why or to, to actually engage with the person that's claiming it in a way that doesn't make you dismissed.

I think that's part of the problem is mainstream media is just dismissed because they're always saying things are false and they're always, you know, just kind of outright dismissing people's thoughts.

And I feel like that's where you get into trouble.

You really have to take each claim seriously, and you have to explain to people why it can't be possible.

- But isn't that the old journalism conundrum?

I mean, if I walk around and say, the earth, by the way is flat and you're lying when you'd say it's not flat, how much credence do you give to me?

- I would say there is a select group of people that you're not going to reach and how much effort you put into reaching that group.

I, I wouldn't give them as much effort as everyone else.

Right.

And so the earth is flatters aren't going to get as much of my time as everyone - Else.

Okay.

But do you see that the relationship there, the corollary, I mean, there, there are certain things that simply aren't true that election deniers believe.

And how many different ways can you say this is simply not, how far do you go?

How deep do you go on that story?

- I think you see, I, I like going deep, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna just say that you, you do, you find out what is the truth and you go there and you keep repeating it as long as you have - To.

And, and I think you demand proof.

Yes.

Okay.

You're saying the earth is flat.

We've seen, you know, no proof of that.

But what, where is your proof?

Yeah, - Yeah.

- And then you value put that into the context of how much, how you're gonna present that story.

- Would you have done that 20 years ago?

- I would like to think so.

I mean, on the earth is flat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Would you?

But I think, yeah, I I sort of believe that, you know, 20 years ago, so yeah.

- Okay.

Can those watching right now, they can go to different places.

They can find the same story told five different ways.

How, how do you break through that?

How do you at least be a fence keeper, if not a gatekeeper?

- I think you just, you tell them who you are and you tell them that by your work, and that's all you can do individually.

And, you know, institutions can also do it, but I'm, you know, I've always been, you trust certain reporters that you show them what you can do, you know, you're right, the gatekeeper, you know, there's no longer one mass institution and people are tweeting all over the place, random things.

So there's no more, you know, institution.

- Mayor Joe, talk about the landscape out there.

- Well, I mean, it, it's a, it's very diverse right now.

The, the media landscape in Arizona.

I mean, right now we're three different publications.

You know, you could have, you could get four more journalists up here from different, you know, still more different publications that spend a lot of time on elections.

I think on the point of gatekeepers, it's sort of what the viewer or the reader sees is the, what's the source that I trust, or what's the source that I rely on.

I mean, I, I don't know if I consider myself a gatekeeper, but I, I would hope that there are readers and viewers that would say, well, you know, the Arizona Republic, you know, it's one of those mainstream media things and I've read it and, and I trust it, or I trust certain, I trust certain authors within it.

- Right?

But once, once they say mainstream media, Jim, that right there, that right there is, is a bad thing to a significant number of folks out there.

- Sure.

It is.

And, and you know, I I, I think that that the, the idea that the media ecosystem is diverse, yes, I think, I think it is, but I think it's also really fractured and really polarized and, and it, it's, it's less a media, people's media diets have really turned into, instead of balanced diets, they've really turned into, you know, eating one thing only.

And, and you lock yourself into a silo that is only, you're only hearing information that you want to hear, only hearing things that reinforce what you already believe.

And I think that that's where, you know, whether it's through social media or whether it's through, you know, publications that cater to one political audience or another, and, and exclusively talk to those people, I think that that's where, that's where we see a lot of the things that are going on and why it is really difficult to break through and, and to, to convince, you know, to convince some people, like Jen said, I mean, there are people you're not gonna convince.

And, and, you know, I I, you, I don't think that it's worth spending a whole lot of time and effort and resources to try to, because you're, you're not going to, - Jen, talk about your experience during the audit Maricopa County audit, how you were there, what you saw, and especially how this information from what was happening was transferred out in such a variety of ways.

And in, I mean, you talk about feeling the touching the elephant here.

I mean, you're holy smokes.

I mean, you could go four different places and five, six different, you know, descriptions.

What did you see and how did that affect your journalism?

- I think it was the first time that I realized that, you know, the claims from 2020 were hitting home.

It was just after, you know, January 6th.

And we were just realizing that this outside group was going to get control of our ballots.

And, you know, just being there and then watching, you know, the gateway pundit come in and Christina, Bob with OAN was, they were always sitting next to me when I was watching them in the coliseum counting our ballots.

It was just a surreal experience to see how that misinformation cycle started, you know, behind the scenes with the leader of the cyber ninjas coming up to Christina Bob, and then being broadcast out, you know, it really was a, a representation of how this misinformation gets born and bred and, and then passed on.

- Yeah.

And, but, but, and also the fact that when you wanted information, when you needed to get information, it was so difficult to come by.

- It was, and you know, I felt like our senator Ken Bennett, who's now, you know, a senator, he wasn't at the time, was trying to be the conduit between us.

Mary Jo, remember that he was trying to get us information and they were trying to keep him away from, you know, the what we wanted to know story, - Story within the story, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So we were, we were very much, you know, in this position where we saw this misinformation, but we didn't know the facts.

So what do you do in that po in that position?

- Yeah, I would, I also gonna add that the audit, you know, to the earlier point about there being a lot of outlets in Arizona that focus on elections and, and devote a fair amount of their coverage, I give the audit credit for that.

I think that woke up a lot of people in Arizona.

Like, what is this thing going on down at the Coliseum with the little, you know, Rollings, you know, lazy Susans and people counting ballots and the blue pens and everything that it, it got a lot more interest in following election news.

And the more people observing, you know, it's more sunshine.

Sunshine is always good, right?

It is hard to have that sunshine penetrate when you've got a big barrier like they put up at the audit.

I mean, but they let us in the room.

You, I mean, I, I had the happy duty of going to the sweat box where they had to relocate in the summer and the, the swamp cooled facility.

I want people to know that I did my first amendment duty, but man, I took a lot of showers.

But, but they allow, at least there was, you know, some, some ability to monitor, at least from a distance what they were doing, but you couldn't get answers about what they were finding.

- Well, and, and, and Jim, this is, this is, these are our votes here.

These are our ballots that are being pawed over and maybe moved to different locations and all this kind of thing.

You need to get as much information out of that as possible.

And it just seemed like every day the reporting out of there was, well, maybe this and someone wasn't allowing for the, I mean, that's not how you run an airline.

- N no, I mean, I think that there were a lot of issues with that, that, you know, call it an audit, I'd call it a partisan ballot review.

Call it something, you know, that was dreamed up really by the Trump campaign and implemented in Arizona.

I mean, because I think I, I think that's really at the end of the day, and what we've learned since is exactly what it was.

And, and I think that the, the opaqueness was part of the design.

I mean, they didn't want to let us in at all.

We had to hire attorneys and go to court in order to even get people to be in the building at all.

So, I mean, I, you know, I think if they had it, if they had their druthers, they would've done it all in a black box, and we would've known nothing until they were done, and they released whatever they released.

- I mean, I remember when elections in Arizona were considered a shining star along with judicial retention.

We kept doing stories on how the country was always looking at it with elections and with judicial retention as far as elections, obviously that has changed now, but what do you remember from previous elections and in these past two?

- Well, I think from, and thank you for honoring my seniority, apparently among the crowd here, there prior to 2020, I think often the biggest, you know, thing coming out of election coverage other than who won.

And there usually wasn't much dispute about that also, because many of those elections were pretty lopsided.

But the, the big storyline is why does it take so long to get results?

Yeah.

Why do we have to wait?

Why is it week two?

And that still happens, but it's been overtaken by these claims that are more an assault on the, the system itself.

Well, you know, things were rigged or, you know, the, the, my ballot got spit out, you know, of the machine.

And then I, I, you know, so my vote didn't count, you know, or I do, I need to see that, you know, I need to see my ballot and know that it was counted.

Well, you can't know that because it's a pri it's a secret ballot, you know?

So I think that's the big difference is it's more skepticism about some of the mechanics of the election, whereas before it was just like this, wait, wait, wait, why do we have to wait so long?

And the impatience of having to wait for, for election - Results, why the skepticism?

What happened?

- Well, Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump, I mean, it, I think that made all the difference.

And Donald Trump's why there's a press corps in Arizona, that's a more robust press corps in Arizona that is paying attention to elections.

He drew, I mean, we all know the Donald Trump story, but you know, he has his, he has people that are firmly in his camp and people that you know, are, are very leery, if not, you know, terrified by, you know, or fascinated by what he's doing.

And it, and he brings a lot of attention.

He, the guy gets a heck of a lot of attention.

So I think that's what made a different, and then you layer on in 2020, you know, we were having a pandemic, right?

You know, so we've tried different ways of to, to try to let the vote go on.

And I remember, you know, skepticism about allowing people to drive up to a polling place, but vote from their vehicle.

And rightfully so.

You gotta be concerned about some safeguards, but you also wanna talk about health safeguards as well.

So I think, yeah, Trump and Covid, thank you.

- And Jim MaryJo mentioned that that races weren't necessarily always as tight as it seems like they are right now, back in the day and back in the day.

That's a lot easier to figure out what's going on, and a lot more difficult to say it's rigged when you lost by a landslide.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I, I, it's, I remember having the experience one time of going back and looking at a race, thinking a race that I had expected was, you know, an eight or nine point victory by the Republican and coming to find out, you know, oh, it was only three points.

Well, I guess they kept counting all those ballots after election day, and we are when the race had already been called and the race tightened significantly.

But that was kind of, that was what we looked at, right?

I mean, Democrats were very rarely competitive statewide.

They were, you know, there were a handful of legislative seats that are competitive that might've, you know, we, we might've been waiting for counts on those for four or five, six days after the election, you know, maybe, you know, depending on the counties or city level, things like that.

But, but generally, you know, if you had an r after your name, you were gonna win and you were probably gonna win pretty comfortably in Arizona.

And, and so I, you know, I think that that is one of the biggest things that's changed is the demographics and just the voting patterns in the state have, have resulted in Democrats making more gains and, and, and being able to perform better at the ballot box.

And I, I, I do think a lot of what we see in a, in a lot of this, this election, denialism, is just almost a refusal to accept kind of where the world is at now, where Arizona is at now, versus where it was at 10 years ago, or 15 or 20 years ago, when republicans were the dominant, dominant political force.

And they, they knew that they were going to walk outta the elections with easy wins, and now they're not.

And, and so I think that there's a, a little bit of kind of having to confront reality and, and I think it's, it manifests, I mean it's certainly, it's spurred on by Donald Trump.

It's spurred on by, by some of the covid things that happened.

But I think that that is, you know, that undergird that it's kind of the, that the undergirding for a lot of what's going on.

- And I, you know, speaking of like close selections, you're right.

You know, there, that's a more recent phenomenon.

But I remember, like, we would have close selections often in a primary, and I keep remembering one that happened in a legislative district, you know, a long time ago, and it was a tie.

And so what did they do?

Secretary of State Jane Hole, you know, dressed up like a, a a card dealer and they drew cards to figure out, you know, who won the seat.

But nobody was saying I was, this was rigged, I was ripped off, I was robbed and made.

That whole discussion, you know, has changed.

And I will be, you know, we've got some very competitive Republican primaries coming up here.

I'm thinking of CD eight especially.

And we have, you know, Abe ho there who's still, you know, arguing that he won the ags race.

I will be interested to see if that is anywhere near close what the dynamics are in that kind of primary.

- Would, would you expect that kind of narrative in a primary where everyone is of the same party as opposed to a general where you get an r and d and a maybe someone else tossed in?

- I'm not as expecting it as much.

I don't know if you two are.

Yeah, but I think everything's gonna be about the general election - As far as Donald Trump, one individual saying it was rigged and just saying it over and over and over again.

And as Jim mentioned, demographics, I mean, are, are those the two major factors as to why elections A are closer, and B, it just seems like no one's happy with the results.

- I see a lot of it being, yeah, the changing political makeup of our state.

And you know, a lot of, you know, in 2020, a lot of the disruption or some of the disruption came from the Red County's Cochise County trying to block the certification of the election.

You know, they were, you know, trying to make a stand against something that happened in Maricopa County when they did that.

And so we're seeing kind of, you know, the republican areas of the state responding to people like Trump and like Kerry Lake and, you know, trying to, to protest what's happening in Maricopa.

- And you recently posted something regarding rural voting in Arizona and how new laws and procedures and such, talk to us about that because it's making a difference out there.

It, it's making for a different landscape, if you will.

- Yeah, I went out to the Tejana Noum Nation, and I met with a small village there who was getting Maricopa County to put in satellite technology so that they can connect their electronic poll books, and so they can have a more secure connection.

They're trying to fix their mail, voting out there, that's a big problem in rural areas, trying to get mail in time or get it at all and then send it back in time.

So there are efforts across the state to try to see that, you know, our voting stays secure and reliable.

- You know, tomorrow's kind of a cut and dry deal with this presidential preference thing, but from then on the election, you're watching the most I would imagine would be the US Senate race.

I think everyone is that way.

Other races to watch and why, - Well, clearly the presidential and then because, and then the legislative races.

I mean, this is the year where, especially with the Democratic governor in place, which is different than the past, and she's been doing a lot of fundraising and being very clear that her intention is to try to flip the legislature, be watching some of those very competitive legislative races in the primary, but also in the general, - Are there more competitive races this go around than previous?

No, no, - No.

I, I don't think so.

I think it's more, it's a question of strategy and resources that if there's gonna be a different kind of outcome, the, the, for our viewers, the legislature's been stuck at 31 and 29 and 16 and 14 in the, the House and Senate respectively for two election cycles.

It hasn't changed.

So, you know, even with district lines having changed.

So I think the difference, if there will be one will be probably resources and strategy, - Big stories, Jim, this election cycle.

Yeah, - No, I mean, I think, I think Mary Jo's exactly right.

I mean, I think the control of the legislature, that being in the balance, that is not something that we were familiar with in Arizona.

You know, Republicans have, with a couple of very rare exceptions, control of the legislature since the mid 1960s.

And, and so if Democrats are able to take control of one chamber or even, or both, certainly that changes the dynamics down at the Capitol that those are probably the most consequential races for, for everyday Arizonas - Day to day, day-to-day life - For day-to-day life in Arizona.

You know, there's also a couple of congressional seats that are, that are gonna be competitive that, you know, Republicans, David Schweikert outta Scottsdale based district, and Juan Siska outta Tucson, Democrats are making hard plays for both of those.

Obviously Republicans hold a, an extremely narrow majority in the US House of Representatives and Democrats are hoping to, you know, again, take over, take over control of - Congress, Jen, headlines for this election cycle.

What do you see?

- It's all about the counties.

I think that's what we learned, like, especially in 2022, we're looking at not only, you know, the Maricopa County supervisor races two, were leaving after, you know, facing all of this drama the last four years.

This isn't the job they signed up for when it was all about water districts and other boring stuff for county supervisors.

So not just in Maricopa though, in Coachee County and Mojave County, there's important supervisor races going on there, recorder races.

These are also election administrators that's gonna be who's running our elections in 2028.

So we have to look at - That.

How do you make room for the Corporation Commission and other races out there that are of consequence when all this yelling and screaming and court filings and lawsuits and this, that, and the other?

How do you make room for it?

- Oh, that's a Jim question.

I have no idea.

I'm just a reporter.

You - Know, I, I have no idea.

How do you, - We're talking priority again.

- Yeah, no, I, I mean, it's difficult, right?

I mean, you, you do have to kind of decide what are you gonna commit to, and, and some of, some of it is guided by which races seem like they're gonna be close, right?

Like, are we gonna, are we gonna cover race A or race B?

Well, race B looks like it might be a closer race, so we're gonna cover that instead with our, with our limited staff time and, and, and staff resources.

But it, but it is important.

And I think a lot of it comes down to, some of it's gonna come down to planning, just knowing ahead of time, you know, you sit down in, in this time of year or April and kind of sketch out, like, what do we wanna do and when do we wanna do it?

And, and how do we, how do we kind of devote resources to that or, or find, find a way to, to free someone up to go cover something.

- Talk about the logistics, Mary Jo of, of that, of, of prioritizing and making sure that what you want in there, what you think should be in there is in there.

- Well, you look at, yeah, as Jim said, things that are close where there is, you know, there's gonna be a lot of attention, I mean, a lot of public interest because things appear to be so close, and the consequences, like the legislature flipping to Democratic, that would be practically historic, you know, so you're gonna pay attention to that.

And I would say another thing that I'm gonna be watching for if it makes the ballot is the, the Make Elections Fair Citizen Initiative, because that will change how we vote.

And that's sort of, you know, that, that's sort of at the heart of all of this, you know, if we feel that the state is, and the, the backers of this feel that we've become way too hyper-partisan.

They're trying to take that temperature down by going to a, an open primary and then maybe some kind of a ranked choice voting afterwards.

If, if you don't get a clear winner from that, and I know I'm, I'm making the argument within my publication to spend some time, you know, discussing that and analyzing it and putting it out there, because it, it is a big change in how we would, it would be a big change in how conduct our elections.

- So I think that's another thing when we talk about resources, right?

We're talking about races and candidates.

Boy, what is our, what are the ballot measures gonna look like this year?

Right?

I mean, so we have this, the Make elections Fair one, there is a reproductive rights ballot citizen initiative that's out gathering signatures there.

The legislature is mulling, they've already put a couple things on the ballot.

They're mulling dozens more, several dozen, four dozen more things that could potentially wind up on the ballot.

I mean, in Maricopa County, I think we're already looking at a two page ballot.

Yeah, I think we very likely, depending on how many things lawmakers send to the ballot to avoid a veto, we might end up with a three page ballot, or God forbid, a four page ballot.

And it's, you know, those are all things that again, have to be, you know, we'd love to cover every one of them.

We'd love to cover every one of 'em in, in great detail, but we're gonna have to make those choices in terms of which, which things are out there and how can we cover everything?

- How does Vote Beat approach all of this?

- I mean, ballot initiatives, we wanna explain to people what these are.

If they're election related, we're gonna be in there, you know, saying this is, you know, this qualified for the ballot, you're gonna see this.

You might have an open primary.

This means that, you know, you're not gonna just see Republicans on, everyone's gonna be able to vote, you know, explain the details, you know, rank choice, voting.

That's a, that's a big issue that no one's really talking about yet, but it might be coming onto their ballots.

So I think we focus really on what's going to be important to voters, and that's where we start.

- Yeah.

I, it, it's, it can be complicated at your job, is to clarify things for voters and for viewers and for our audience here, make sure we know what we're looking at here.

Heather, do we have some questions?

- Yes.

So this may be a process question, but outside of complaining that Arizona doesn't get its votes in early enough, how do you feel, do you feel the national press represents, you know, the Arizona voter stories, actually?

Or are you the source of their, you know, information?

- Jen, why don't you take that one?

- I think the national Press has gotten a little better about, you know, we call it parachuting in, in our industry, where you, you know, there's a big story and everybody drops in for a night and then leaves, you know, but like I noticed during the 2022 printer problems in Maricopa County, that they, you know, the national media really took it upon themselves to learn the issue, learn our voters, and, and you know, there's a whole room full for a week.

So, yeah.

- What do you think, - I mean, the Washington Post has a reporter based here.

She's, you know, she's local.

She used to work for the Republic.

I mean, she knows Arizona, the New York Times has always had a person covering, you know, our area.

So we're just an object of fascination.

And that, as one of my editors used to say, you know, we are a very fertile news environment, and that attracts journalists, and we've got some of them like camping here.

- Finally, we have Penny from Scottsdale.

What is your question?

- My question is leading, pulling from the last comment that Mary Jo said and tying it to the mis and disinformation, what obligation do you all feel that you have to ensure that those titles of your articles reflect what the story is?

'cause it's not uncommon to have a story and you see a title and you read the story and say, that's not what the title, you know, wants me, is leading me to believe.

- Do, do they still have headline writers at publications that are just different from the person who actually wrote the story they used to back in the day?

Do they still do that, Mary Jo?

Mm, - Somewhat.

So, I, I mean, I think we all have different stories, but we are supposed to put headlines on the stories that we write.

So, which in a way is, I, I remember I was grumbling about that, and one of my sources said, well, wouldn't that be better?

Because then you are controlling the headline on your own story.

And I'm like, yeah, but I'm tired.

It's been the end of the day.

I don't want, you've gotta meet a certain count.

It's gotta meet all these SEO requirements and keywords and blah, blah, blah.

But so, but often I will write a headline and then somebody else, a producer in the newsroom will change it.

Yeah.

Because they think it'll get more clicks, - Jim.

- Yeah, I mean, I, I spend a lot of my day, more of my day than I'd like writing headlines, right?

That, yeah.

Yeah.

I, I mean, it, it's a challenge.

I mean, I, I, I think headlines are maybe one of the bigger places that journalism falls down a little bit.

'cause I, I think headlines are a place stories can, stories can be really good and really insightful and really incisive and, and written really tightly and sharply and, and get the point across.

And headlines can be mush mouth.

And I personally don't care for that.

A lot of passive voice, a lot of, you know, backing, you know, equivocating in a headline.

I'm, I'm a fan of personally, of really strong headlines and, and, and kind of aggressive headlines that get right to the point of what the story is.

And if, if I, if I write a headline and I read the story and I realize that the thing I'm writing about in the headline isn't for five paragraphs in, I either need to rewrite my headline, or I need to, I need to help the reporter with the story and get the story, you know, up, up into shape.

- Jen, - I love that question.

'cause headlines always bother me.

I don't know, I hate question headlines.

Like, we could technically write a, a headline that says, you know, did Carrie Lake really win her election?

And then just have it say no underneath, you know, and it'll get people to click.

So I, I think there's a responsibility that comes with writing headlines, and I'm always a little aggravated when I see someone, you know, misusing that responsibility.

- Jen Fifield, vote Beat Jim Small Arizona Mirror, Mary Jo Petzel, Arizona Republican az central.com panel.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- We would like to thank all of our guests today, along with David Becker and Ted Simons, of course, eh, and then of course, thank you to our live studio audience tonight for Arizona PBS.

It's been my pleasure to be with you.

I'm Heather Moore.