Elections in Cochise County will now be run almost entirely by Recorder David Stevens, an election skeptic who has said he does not fully trust all of his county’s election procedures and believes the county can and should move to hand-counting ballots.
The Board of Supervisors for the southern Arizona county voted 2-1 on Tuesday afternoon to transfer the board’s election oversight to Stevens, giving up their statutorily-prescribed control over the appointment of the county’s elections director, Election Day procedures, ballot counting and presentation of election results. Republicans Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd voted yes, and Democrat Chairwoman Ann English voted no.
The supervisors moved forward despite a warning from the attorney general’s office they received on Monday night, in which the solicitor general wrote that he had serious concerns about the legality of the drafted agreement.
“If you are aware of legal authority for the draft Agreement, please promptly provide it to us,” Solicitor Bendor Joshua Bendor wrote.
The move comes after Crosby and Judd for months challenged the county’s fall election procedures in ways that drew national attention, including attempting to illegally hand count all ballots and then refusing to certify the election results, against the advice of the county attorney and the secretary of state. The turmoil led to the recent resignation of the county’s well-respected elections director, Lisa Marra, who said she was disparaged and harassed as she refused to comply with the efforts.
Stevens helped propel the full hand count against the legal advisement. Even before Marra left, the board had already proposed giving him more control over elections.
The recorder is close with former GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, who built a campaign on false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.