Sec. of State Brewer Admonishes Pima County for Unsafe Election Practice

Urges Immediate Action to Ban Live Ballots from Partisan Party Hands Before Vote

PHOENIX -- Secretary of State Jan Brewer issued a strongly worded letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors urging them to stop providing partisan party representatives live ballots prior to the election and allowing these same political individuals to remove these ballots from the election offices for “independent” testing.

“Allowing partisan party members to take live ballots for their own use and away from the direct oversight of election officials – no matter how well meaning – provides an opportunity for reproduction of the ballots,” stated Sec. Brewer, “I urge you to take immediate action concerning this serious security issue.”

The issue was first brought forward during Senate Judiciary committee testimony earlier this month. During the meeting, representatives of the Libertarian party and Democratic party noted their practice of removing ballots from County election offices during the required testing of voting equipment, prior to each election. Specifically, Pima County election officials have been allowing political party officials to take live ballots – which could be easily reproduced – off-site to conduct their own independent testing.

“There is absolutely no basis for this practice in law, nor any such provision within the Secretary of State Election Procedures Manual,” Sec. Brewer added, “I can’t help but wonder under what authority your election officials have implemented such a fundamental security breach. “This is extremely bad public policy.”

In addition to the strong admonishment from Secretary Brewer, she also announced her hopes that the State Senate would look very closely at this practice as relevant legislation moves forward in the State Senate.

Added Sec. Brewer, “I have attached a copy of this letter to Senator Chuck Gray, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and to Senator Karen Johnson with the hopes that they will take corrective action at the legislature to ensure this practice does not continue.”

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