SAFFORD — What goes on behind the scenes of an election was the subject of a town hall Tuesday.
Initiated by Gila Valley Indivisible, the town hall focused on what steps Graham County takes to ensure every election takes place without issue.
“I hope everyone walks away from this meeting with an appreciation of how the county processes the election,” County Manager Dustin Welker said.
– David Bell Photo/Gila Valley Central
Graham County Elections Director Hannah Duderstadt and County Recorder Polly Merriman explained the process of voting in Graham County — from the requirements to register to vote to mail-in and early balloting, to voting in-person at vote centers.
Merriman also discussed the process of verifying mail-in ballots.
“If the voter signature is missing or cannot be verified, we will make every reasonable effort to contact the voter and provide them the opportunity for them to verify that it was their signature,” Merriman said.
Duderstadt explained the Election Day process, saying that counting machines are not connected to the internet, and each location is assigned an encrypted flash drive to produce a ballot report. Then, when the polls close, the ballots are transported to the General Services Building where they are counted in a locked, secure room that is broadcast live on the county’s website.
“When these ballots come in, they are counting every single ballot to make sure that it matches the ballot report that we get. So, if we’re missing one, we don’t stop until we find it,” Duderstadt said.
– David Bell Photo/Gila Valley Central
During a question-and-answer period with the audience, it was explained that the cameras in the counting room are running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And ballots are kept in a county vault for two years.
Graham County IT Director McCoy Hawkins said his knowledge goes back to 1996, and there hasn’t been a technical problem preventing ballot tabulation in those 30 years. However, when Cochise County’s systems went down in 2016, Graham County counted Cochise’s ballots and that count matched perfectly.
Welker also said Graham County is the first county to report both preliminary and final results to the state, and both Merriman and Duderstadt said the Secretary of State’s Office is in constant communication with all the counties to ensure the election process functions without issue.
Merriman added that she was informed by the Secretary of State that mail-in voting is expected to continue as normal, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling that states have not yet been harmed by the President’s executive order limiting mail-in voting.
