Recent Articles from Jen Fifield, Votebeat
Federal-only voters are mostly on college campuses
Young adults living on or near college campuses in Arizona are disproportionately affected, and potentially disenfranchised, by the state’s unique voting laws requiring documented proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in state and local elections, a Votebeat analysis found.
Cochise County officials who refused to certify election now under investigation by Arizona attorney general
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is investigating two Cochise County supervisors who refused to certify the county’s midterm election results by the state-required deadline.
County tailors ballot project to politically connected firm
As an Arizona county prepares to spend up to $1 million in state money to test anti-counterfeit features on ballots, it appears the project was tailored for one company in particular that has pushed the idea with the help of political allies in the state for more than two years.
‘It was a nightmare’: Pinal County builds new elections space after cramped quarters contribute to errors
Construction is under way on a $29 million, 53,000-square-foot elections center in the nearby county seat of Florence, which will have more than enough room to keep voter registration, early voting, and Election Day activities under one roof.
After botching election results, Arizona county wants to try hand-counting ballots
After human error in Pinal County’s midterm election caused officials to initially fail to count hundreds of ballots, the county’s supervisors now want to try counting ballots by hand.
Arizona voters were told the election went fine. Records show a county director saw glaring errors, cashed out, then fled.
The supervisors made it easy for her: They didn’t ask her any questions, voting unanimously to certify the results. She got her bonus, and quickly moved to an East Texas town with fewer than 1,000 residents. It would be another month before Arizona voters learned what internal evidence already showed — that Ross had botched the count in a way that excluded hundreds of votes from the original r[...]
How an Arizona official is making Cochise County a “laboratory” for election skepticism
David Stevens had never supervised a ballot count. He didn’t know how he would count nearly 50,000 ballots by hand, who would help, or where he would find enough space to do it. But that didn’t dissuade him.