Key to Preventing Fraud in Maricopa County Is to Demand “Total Ballots Cast” Number ON ELECTION NIGHT!

 One easy measure to prevent election fraud requires counties publicize on election night the “Total Ballots Cast”.

The descriptive name can vary. It references the total number of ballots in the jurisdictions possession, a.k.a. the total number of people who voted. Counties typically provide this total by 10-11PM on election night. Among other protections, knowing this total on election night helps insure ballots are not added after the deadline.

Maricopa County Elections uses sleight-of-hand by reporting election updates that are only the ballots they counted. They won’t disclose this total voter participation until all counting is done. This method hides potential misconduct, including late added ballots. It took Verity Vote 18 months to obtain records from Maricopa. Their report shows 20,000 ballots were picked up at USPS in the 3 days after the election, and tabulated. Had Maricopa reported TBC on election night 2020, these ballots would have been rejected. It would have raised too many alarms seeing 20,000 ballots added 3 days after the election.

Maricopa again didn’t provide TBC on election night in last week’s Primary. They only provide 4 updates to the public in those 7 days following the election. We put their time-stamped updates side by side so you can see the totals increase as new updates were released (download here).

The only definitive number Maricopa releases on election night is the number of In-Person voters, listed as “Election Day” voters. When these type voters arrive at the polls their ID is verified, their ballot printed, they select candidates, then insert their ballot into an onsite tabulator. These ballots don’t go through any signature validation, and rarely need adjudication. The number of “Election Day” voters has been made public every election night for decades in Maricopa. It’s the only number that never changes throughout days of Maricopa counting.

The Mail-In ballots (Early Vote) go through an entirely different process. These totals are not disclosed on election night, but should be. There’s a couple ways to count these inbound envelopes. A high speed mail sorter like the Bluecrest Vantage is used by elections, print shops, etc. It counts, sorts, captures the digital signature image, and many other features. It can process 40-50,000 an hour making it practical to use in the days leading up to the election. But one machine would be overwhelmed on election day. A flood of mail-in ballots arrive from USPS. And all mail-in ballots that were dropped off at vote centers arrive at night.

Detroit’s TCF center purchased a Vantage sorting machine earlier this year for $1.06mil (pg. 8). Maricopa could acquire two for just over $2 million. According to their Primary counts, Maricopa can only process about 70k ballots a day. Two Vantage machines could process 800,000 to a million ballots in one 10 hour shift, while also capturing signature scans. This assumes other positions are staffed adequately. With these machines Maricopa could go back to having all their ballots in one location. They could end the bizarre ballot signature relationship with Runbeck.