Readers of this blog might like to note that the Archives in the right-hand margin will produce a number of previous going back to 2016 about issues in this post today...just type in "Boy Scouts" in the Search Box. Here is one post retrieved:
Jun 21, 2017 · Readers might ask why your MesaZona blogger is featuring a post on this ... long-standing sponsorship here in Arizona for The Boy Scouts
"Nick
and Spencer were born and raised Mormons in the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. It’s no longer a sin to be Mormon and gay, but the
church says it is a sin to act on same-sex attraction. Nick and Spencer
are trying to navigate the largely uncharted territory of being gay and
married and active in the LDS church. By
the church’s standards, they are living in sin and are subject to
church discipline. When they got married in Hawaii, they lost the
privileges of full membership in the church, and they were forced to
accept painful restrictions—no partaking of the sacrament on Sundays, no
callings in their ward, no temple attendance, and no wearing of sacred
garments. . . "
Boy Scouts Ruling Threatens $250 Million Abuse Deal With Mormons
Steven Church
·3 min read
The complex ruling by US Bankruptcy Court Judge Laurie Silverstein
forces the Boy Scouts to return to the bargaining table with some of the
groups funding the $2.7 billion fund, including the religious group
known colloquially as the Mormon church.
Silverstein handed the
Boy Scouts a partial victory Friday when she rejected arguments that a
settlement with abuse survivors was not negotiated in good faith. The
judge did not give final approval to the proposed trust fund plan,
however, instead she rejected a number of key provisions. One example is
Silverstein’s refusal to grant the church a so-called third party
release that would have given the church broad legal protections from
all sex abuse claims, not just those involving the Boy Scouts.
Read more: Boy Scouts Must Change $2.7 Billion Sex Abuse Fund, Judge Rules
“The
TCJC settlement stretches third party releases too far,” Silverstein
wrote. Such releases have been attacked by members of the US Congress
and advocates for sex abuse victims and people harmed by addictive
prescriptions drugs.
A representative for the church declined to immediately comment.
The
Boy Scouts will also need to change the complex rules governing how
much each abuse victim would collect under the plan because of
Silverstein’s decision. The judge sided with holdout insurance companies
lead by American International Group Inc. when she refused to declare
that the rules, known as trust distribution procedures, are “fair and
equitable.”
The Boy Scouts “have decisions to make regarding the
plan and need sufficient time to determine how to proceed,” Silverstein
wrote.
Those decisions include whether to try to get a new deal with the Mormon church.
“We
are committed to working with all constituents to make the necessary
changes required by the ruling to drive this process forward and we
remain optimistic about securing approval of a final Plan as soon as
possible” the Boy Scouts said in an emailed statement.
The
decision came after a weeks-long trial ended earlier this year in
Wilmington, Delaware. Silverstein listened to testimony from abuse
experts, financial advisers and insurance specialists over whether it
would be fair -- and legal -- for the Boy Scouts to route those abuse
claims to the compensation fund instead of allowing them to proceed in
court. The fund would compensate 82,000 people who claim they were
molested while part of the 112-year-old organization.
Her complicated ruling was almost 300 pages long and included more than 750 footnotes.
For
the Boy Scouts to exit bankruptcy oversight, they need Silverstein to
approve their proposed reorganization. The plan is based on the trust
fund and the lengthy procedures it would use to determine how much each
victim is entitled to receive.
Silverstein
said she would hold a court hearing on the status of the reorganization
after the Boy Scouts have reviewed her detailed ruling.
After a
rocky start to the bankruptcy case in 2020, the Boy Scouts eventually
settled with the main victims’ groups, several wealthy local scouting
councils and some insurance companies. Those groups kicked in the $2.7
billion and voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal.
The
holdout insurers, including AIG, Liberty Mutual Holding Co. and
Travelers Cos., tried to convince Silverstein to reject the compensation
fund by arguing that the deals underpinning it were negotiated in in
bad faith. They also claimed rules for deciding who should be paid and
how much are unfair.
The case is Boy Scouts of America, 20-10343, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
The complex ruling by US Bankruptcy Court Judge Laurie Silverstein
forces the Boy Scouts to return to the bargaining table with some of the
groups funding the $2.7 billion fund, including the religious group
known colloquially as the Mormon church.
Silverstein handed the
Boy Scouts a partial victory Friday when she rejected arguments that a
settlement with abuse survivors was not negotiated in good faith. The
judge did not give final approval to the proposed trust fund plan,
however, instead she rejected a number of key provisions. One example is
Silverstein’s refusal to grant the church a so-called third party
release that would have given the church broad legal protections from
all sex abuse claims, not just those involving the Boy Scouts.
Read more: Boy Scouts Must Change $2.7 Billion Sex Abuse Fund, Judge Rules
“The
TCJC settlement stretches third party releases too far,” Silverstein
wrote. Such releases have been attacked by members of the US Congress
and advocates for sex abuse victims and people harmed by addictive
prescriptions drugs.
A representative for the church declined to immediately comment.
The
Boy Scouts will also need to change the complex rules governing how
much each abuse victim would collect under the plan because of
Silverstein’s decision. The judge sided with holdout insurance companies
lead by American International Group Inc. when she refused to declare
that the rules, known as trust distribution procedures, are “fair and
equitable.”
The Boy Scouts “have decisions to make regarding the
plan and need sufficient time to determine how to proceed,” Silverstein
wrote.
Those decisions include whether to try to get a new deal with the Mormon church.
“We
are committed to working with all constituents to make the necessary
changes required by the ruling to drive this process forward and we
remain optimistic about securing approval of a final Plan as soon as
possible” the Boy Scouts said in an emailed statement.
The
decision came after a weeks-long trial ended earlier this year in
Wilmington, Delaware. Silverstein listened to testimony from abuse
experts, financial advisers and insurance specialists over whether it
would be fair -- and legal -- for the Boy Scouts to route those abuse
claims to the compensation fund instead of allowing them to proceed in
court. The fund would compensate 82,000 people who claim they were
molested while part of the 112-year-old organization.
Her complicated ruling was almost 300 pages long and included more than 750 footnotes.
For
the Boy Scouts to exit bankruptcy oversight, they need Silverstein to
approve their proposed reorganization. The plan is based on the trust
fund and the lengthy procedures it would use to determine how much each
victim is entitled to receive.
Silverstein
said she would hold a court hearing on the status of the reorganization
after the Boy Scouts have reviewed her detailed ruling.
After a
rocky start to the bankruptcy case in 2020, the Boy Scouts eventually
settled with the main victims’ groups, several wealthy local scouting
councils and some insurance companies. Those groups kicked in the $2.7
billion and voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal.
The
holdout insurers, including AIG, Liberty Mutual Holding Co. and
Travelers Cos., tried to convince Silverstein to reject the compensation
fund by arguing that the deals underpinning it were negotiated in in
bad faith. They also claimed rules for deciding who should be paid and
how much are unfair.
The case is Boy Scouts of America, 20-10343, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
One of my most reliable and trusted sources for information BleepingComputer.com is a premier destination for computer users of all
skill levels to learn how to use and receive support for their computer
Bleeping Computer is a website covering technology news and offering free computer help via its forums that was created by Lawrence Abrams in 2004. It publishes news focusing heavily on cybersecurity, but also covers other topics including... Wikipedia
Date launched: January 26, 2004
Latest from bleepingcomputer.com
BlackCat ransomware claims attack on European gas pipeline
The ALPHV ransomware gang, aka BlackCat, claimed responsibility for a
cyberattack against Creos Luxembourg S.A. last week, a natural gas
pipeline and electricity network operator in the central European
country.
Creos’ owner, Encevo, who operates as an energy supplier in five EU countries, announced on July 25 that they had suffered a cyberattack the previous weekend, between July 22 and 23.
While the cyberattack had resulted in the customer portals of Encevo
and Creos becoming unavailable, there was no interruption in the
provided services.
Facebook’s parent company Metaand major
US hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that
sends health information to Facebook, two proposed class-action lawsuits
allege.
The lawsuits, filed in the Northern District of
California in June and July, focus on the Meta Pixel tracking tool. The
tool can be installed on websites to provide analytics on Facebook and
Instagram ads. It also collects information about how people click
around and input information into those websites.
An investigation by The Markupin
early June found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the United States
use the Meta Pixel on their websites. At seven hospitals, it was
installed on password-protected patient portals. The investigation found
that the tool was sending information about patient health conditions,
doctor appointments, and medication allergies to Facebook.
In one of the lawsuits, a patientsays
that her medical information was sent to Facebook by the Meta Pixel tool
on the University of California San Francisco and Dignity Health
patient portals (those hospitals are also defendants in the suit). The
patient then was served advertisements targeted to her heart and knee
conditions, the lawsuit says.
The other lawsuit, from a patient at the MedStar Health
System in Baltimore, Maryland, alleges that at least 664 healthcare
providers have sent medical data to Facebook through the Meta Pixel.
Under the medical privacy law HIPAA, healthcare
organizations need patient consent to share personally identifiable
health information with outside groups. Meta says that it requires
groups using the Meta Pixel to have the right to share data before
sending that data to Facebook and that it filters out sensitive health
data. The lawsuits allege that Meta is knowingly not enforcing those
policies and that itput the Pixel on healthcare organizations’ websites despite knowing it would collect personal health information.
The lawsuits will have to be certified as class actions
by a judge before they can move forward. If either is successful, they
could bring damages on behalf of all Facebook users whose medical
providers employed the Meta Pixel.
Hah, there must be something-in-the-water here or What!! They first said "it was a human error" in printing some election ballots, that required sending out to voters two versions with two different identification requirements for federal versus municipal elections...and then here's the real thing as reported today: WHOA!
Pinal County ballot debacle could foreshadow errors in other counties
When David Frisk took over Pinal County’s elections in March after
arriving from Washington state, he was the third director on the job in
the past two years. He was greeted by a staff of one — in a department
that should have had five full-time workers.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
So it may not be a shock that four months later, an office recovering
from so much turnover would have to confront the fallout of a major
ballot-printing problem. Municipal races for seven communities were
missing from more than 60,000 primary ballots that went out in early
July. Candidates for those local offices cried foul,
wondering where their names were. Some voters in the growing county of
about a half-million residents southeast of Phoenix cast ballots without
noticing.
The county has so far declined to give a specific accounting of
exactly what went wrong, but officials did say the mistake was caused by
a staff member’s programming error, and pre-election processes didn’t
catch it. Frisk’s office has since taken extraordinary measures to issue
additional early ballots enabling residents to vote in those races.
“I think someone would have caught that who had more experience” in
the county’s local elections, said Virginia Ross, the Pinal County
recorder, whose office was not responsible for the error but works
closely with the elections office and has seen the staff turn over. One
director, who served for more than five years, left for a new job in Nevada in late 2020. An interim replacement left for a Texas elections position, creating the opening Frisk filled in March.
Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer holds both a misprinted ballot and a
supplementary ballot containing the municipal races missing from the
original. After the county realized the error that affected 60,000
ballots, it produced the second ballot and instructed voters to use
both. Volkmer and other county officials explained the ballot error at a
press conference in Florence on July 18. Photo by Rachel Leingang |
Votebeat
When David Frisk took over Pinal
County’s elections in March after arriving from Washington state, he was
the third director on the job in the past two years. He was greeted by a
staff of one — in a department that should have had five full-time workers.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
So it may not be a shock that four months later, an office recovering
from so much turnover would have to confront the fallout of a major
ballot-printing problem. Municipal races for seven communities were
missing from more than 60,000 primary ballots that went out in early
July. Candidates for those local offices cried foul,
wondering where their names were. Some voters in the growing county of
about a half-million residents southeast of Phoenix cast ballots without
noticing.
The county has so far declined to give a specific accounting of
exactly what went wrong, but officials did say the mistake was caused by
a staff member’s programming error, and pre-election processes didn’t
catch it. Frisk’s office has since taken extraordinary measures to issue
additional early ballots enabling residents to vote in those races.
“I think someone would have caught that who had more experience” in
the county’s local elections, said Virginia Ross, the Pinal County
recorder, whose office was not responsible for the error but works
closely with the elections office and has seen the staff turn over. One
director, who served for more than five years, left for a new job in Nevada in late 2020. An interim replacement left for a Texas elections position, creating the opening Frisk filled in March.
And, of course, there were the other staff vacancies. Ross, the Pinal
County recorder, said people left elections for better opportunities
and pay.
Pinal’s problems could be a sign of what’s to come in the
high-stress, high-stakes field of election administration, where human
errors certainly happen regardless of experience but where a seasoned
elections director and experienced staff have a better chance of
noticing, several elections experts and officials told Votebeat.
In Arizona and around the country, it is a time of upheaval in
elections, as prominent officials stepped down after disputes over the
2020 election dragged on for years, even in counties where Trump won
handily. They cited harassment and threats, spurred by false claims of a stolen election, as part of why they stepped away.
“I have a feeling that we’re gonna see a lot more attrition, we’re
gonna see a lot more flight of knowledge, and that can manifest itself
in mistakes, in large mistakes that could not just result in
inconveniences for voters,” said Ken Matta, a longtime election security
officer at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office who now works as CIO
for Runbeck Election Services. “I believe that it may also result in
lawsuits. … It could get a little chaotic.”
It’s not easy to recruit for a complex job with relatively low pay,
long hours, and endless hostility from people clinging to false
information, especially at a time when nearly all sectors are trying to
hire.
Frisk, who previously worked in elections in Washington, isn’t
talking to the media until the Aug. 2 primary is over and the county
board of supervisors has a chance to review what went wrong with the
ballots, the county’s spokesman says. Frisk does have election experience:
He was the program manager for the Elections Division in Kitsap County,
a less populous county than Pinal. The county wouldn’t detail whether
the elections systems in Pinal are different from the ones Frisk used in
his previous role.
But he’s taken the fall publicly. He told the supervisors it was his fault because he should have caught the programming error that led to the problem.
I voted for Trump. And I’d really like
to sit down and have a conversation with him. These are real people with
real families that have been impacted by the onslaught of harassment
and misinformation.
– Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, former Yuma County recorder
For some jurisdictions, the departure of one elections administrator
won’t have a huge impact, provided that experienced staff stick around.
But for smaller counties and rural areas, one person could take the bulk
of the county’s election knowledge with them out the door. And,
depending on who replaces the top post, staff could leave — especially
if someone who denies the 2020 election results takes over.
How much has turnover increased among election workers? No one knows for sure.
Anecdotally, it’s clear that skilled people, in Arizona and across
the country, are leaving their elections jobs. But there’s not much
reliable data to track whether turnover is worse than a typical year,
though researchers like Paul Gronke at Reed College have started
surveying election workers to try to understand the problem, which is
especially hard to detect among the non-elected office workers.
“We have no idea how much turnover there is at the staff level,”
Gronke said. “And the problem may be bigger than we even realize it is,
because we don’t know about the staff.”
In Arizona, elections are run by two separate offices: an elected
recorder and an elections department led by an appointed director. The
two offices divvy up elections responsibilities.
Seasoned Arizona election officials in those roles have been stepping
down. Some shared their experiences over the past couple of years,
which illustrate both why attrition could be getting worse, and why
attracting new talent will be a struggle.
In Yuma, real people and real problems
Former Yuma County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, first elected
in 2008, left her post in July, before the end of her term, for a new
job in risk management at the county.
Going into the 2020 election, Stallworth Pouquette believed it’d be
the best election they’d carried out so far. Her staff waded through
COVID-19 successfully, even navigating one point during the early voting
period when 80% of staff was out because of the virus, she said. But
she realized by October 2020 that they were “embarking on a pretty
different journey in election administration.”
“The general public was one of two things: They were either kind and
courteous, excited to vote, or they were rude and hateful and completely
reluctant to trust their ballot to me or my office’s possession. So I
would say that was 50/50, sadly, but I think I completely underestimated
the possibility of brutal verbal abuse,” she said.
I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the word ‘bitch’ that many times in a 24-month period.
– Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, former Yuma County recorder
While recorder, she took the work home with her after long days at
the office fielding calls from the people who spewed vitriol at her, her
staff, and elections in general. She would lie awake at night
ruminating over how to handle all the negative communication she
received, then wake up and go do it all again.
“In the days following the election, most calls or in-person
interactions with people involved either being yelled at, cursed at or
called names,” she said, adding, “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the
word ‘bitch’ that many times in a 24-month period.”
And at home, the election landed at their dinner table. Her son, who
was in 7th grade in the fall of 2020, would hear from classmates who
said their parents thought his mom should be arrested, or that her
office had destroyed ballots cast for Trump.
The onslaught this year of “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked documentary
that uses dubious data points to make claims about ballot drop boxes,
made it worse, though the two years after 2020 were never quiet. Her
sister called after its debut and told her she had to watch the new
movie, and Stallworth Pouqette “lost it,” delivering a lengthy lecture
that, she jokingly said, made her sister not want to call her again.
Even her husband, who she describes as a “saint,” asked questions
about election misinformation he’d seen online. She felt constantly on
guard, ready to defend the good work her office did.
Still, she thought, for the longest time, that she could answer
everyone’s concerns and win them over. But some of the angriest callers
weren’t even registered to vote or hadn’t participated in the election.
The man who called her a bitch multiple times in a phone call a few days
after the election? Never voted.
Stallworth Pouqette is a Republican. Trump won Yuma County. Nothing seemed to matter.
“I voted for Trump,” she said. “And I’d really like to sit down and
have a conversation with him. Because these are real people that have
been impacted by these problems. These are real people with real
families that have been impacted by the onslaught of harassment and
misinformation.”
Since she still works for the county, she’s only a few hundred feet
away from the recorder’s office and happy to help answer any questions.
Elections need a qualified workforce that can navigate the complex laws
and policies that govern the process, so departures certainly cause
concern. But, she said, she had to be “humble enough” to accept that
someone else maybe “could pick up the torch and run with it.”
Richard Colwell, the newly appointed recorder, previously worked for the superior court clerk and was a police officer in Yuma.
“Perhaps it is OK to have new leaders come in and have a different
perspective,” Stallworth Pouqette said. “But you’d have to have a very
healthy balance” of experience and freshness.
Vague threats and character assassination in Yavapai
Stallworth Pouqette’s counterpart and friend in Yavapai County, former Recorder Leslie Hoffman, stepped down in July, too, as did Yavapai’s elections director, Lynn Constabile. Hoffman was the recorder for more than 10 years.
Hoffman, a Republican, faced protests at nearly every step. Since the
2020 election, which Trump won overwhelmingly in Yavapai County, she’s
received a steady stream of vague threats, like “you better watch out,”
and an endless “distraction campaign” of calls, emails, and public
records requests. A sheriff’s patrol routinely circles her house to
ensure her safety.
“After a while, the character assassinations get really old,” Hoffman
said. “And especially when a lot of them come from people that I’ve
known for years. I’ve lived here since the ‘60s, when my family moved
here.”
If the good people are not supported,
(counties will) lose them. And (critics) are destroying our elections
process — whether it’s good or bad, it’s being torn apart. People can
only take so much.
– Leslie Hoffman, former Yavapai County recorder
She’s struggled to understand why she became the target of so much
harassment in her home county, since people upset that Trump lost his
re-election haven’t specified any local problems with how the election
was run. One man told her, though, that she was simply “an easy mark.”
After one protest outside the elections building, protesters littered
their signs on the sidewalk after they left, which said a lot to
Hoffman about the kind of people involved, she said. Her staff picked
them up.
“Then when they came to protest the next one, we had everything in a box and gave it back to them,” she said.
Hoffman left a job she loved in elections for a better-paying gig
outside the industry, though she’s not disclosing her new position or
workplace. Constabile hasn’t spoken to the media about her departure,
but Hoffman has said she left for similar reasons.
Hoffman worries about who will staff elections in the future,
considering what they’ll have to deal with, but she trusts that her
county can still successfully pull off this election without her. The
supervisors appointed Michelle Burchill, previously the elections manager, to fill the recorder vacancy.
“We don’t do this for the money,” Hoffman said. “We’re doing this
because we love what we’re doing. Our big thrill is the audit at the end
of the night, not who won. If the numbers match, woohoo! We’re a bunch
of dorks.”
Hoffman spoke with Votebeat on her second-to-last day in office.
After she spoke publicly about the harassment and threats she faced, she
heard privately from a lot of supporters. But many of them aren’t
vocally defending her. She wishes more people spoke up.
“If the good people are not supported, (counties will) lose them. And
(critics) are destroying our elections process — whether it’s good or
bad, it’s being torn apart. People can only take so much,” she said.
“Horrible, horrible things”
Matta, formerly of the secretary of state’s office, left his job
in May after almost two decades, through both Republican and Democratic
administrations. As part of his duties, he was tasked with wading
through the messages the office got and deciding whether they
constituted threats in need of forwarding to law enforcement. It weighed
on him heavily, and it was a task he wasn’t trained for. What if he
didn’t flag a threat that turned physical?
“I’ve seen the worst in people as they are concerned about the
misinformation they’re hearing about a stolen election,” Matta said.
“Just horrible, horrible things. They’re threatening us, our children.”
Matta fears the turnover and attrition could get worse before it gets
better. He worries about how staff turnover exposes elections to
“insider threats,” like newcomers who harbor unfounded suspicions of the
system, but also about the loss of institutional knowledge. For
practical things like equipment, vendors can help people get up to
speed, but the extensive policies and procedures that keep elections
secure and accurate take more time to learn, he said.
Gronke, the Reed College researcher, said elections jobs haven’t kept
up with the increasingly complex landscape of elections themselves. For
officials in some places, elections make up only part of their job
responsibilities, such as in the cases of clerks who also issue marriage
licenses and record property deeds.
The dearth of research on these workers leaves big questions about
how recruitment plays out, whether there’s a pipeline of people ready to
work elections, how they’re trained, and more, he said. But these are
critical questions that people should be asking of their local
governments, he added.
“We have heard much this year about a wave of retirements, but we
actually know next to nothing about historical rates of retirement and
turnover,” Gronke and two co-authors wrote for the Democracy Fund.
“This makes it impossible to know if we are experiencing a brain drain
or just a typical spike that occurs after a presidential year.”
The stakes are especially high in today’s contentious environment for
elections. Jeff Ellington, the CEO of Runbeck Election Services, said
every minor problem in an election now gets inflated into a conspiracy.
When a printer runs out of toner, like it would in office complexes
around the country on any given day, it’s suddenly evidence of
malfeasance for a certain crowd, he said. It “becomes a conspiracy
versus just the human condition.”
Technology helps elections run smoothly and efficiently, he said, but
humans are a critical part of the process. And humans are notoriously
error-prone compared to machines.
“There are going to be mistakes that don’t have some higher purpose and reason behind them,” he said.
But, both Matta and Ellington said, it’s important for the public to
scrutinize the information they’re hearing and assess its accuracy. And,
beyond that, skeptics need to understand the people running elections
are their neighbors, their friends and family. The more the jobs are
subject to harassment, the less willing people will be to take them.
“You don’t really hear kids going to school going, ‘I want to be in
election administration. I want to work for county government,’ ”
Ellington said. “Some of it’s just educating that these jobs, they’re
rewarding, they’re fun. It is a good group of people that work there.”
What went wrong in Pinal
Back in Pinal County, TV cameras filled a meeting room where, on July
18, a couple of county supervisors, the county sheriff, and the county
attorney told reporters, who were largely from outside the county, how
they would rectify the ballot errors.
The county sent out
a second set of ballots, with an orange bar at the top, to the people
in the seven towns affected. County staff are reaching out to voters via
multiple methods, including ads in newspapers and social media, to let
them know about the changes.
They’ll have to count carefully, with two different sets of ballots.
They may have to recount some races. They more than likely will be sued.
The county is reluctant to blame staffing or any other single issue
at this point, but County Attorney Kent Volkmer noted at a press
conference that “there was a recent change in a recent appointment of a
new elections director that immediately preceded this problem.”
The person who made the programming error is still working at the
county because “we still need him,” Volkmer said. It’ll take way more
staff to remedy the problem. Volkmer estimated the county would have
“upwards of 100 workers” — a combination of poll workers, county
employees, and new hires — helping to ensure the new ballot process goes
well. The additional cost to the county was “north of $100,000 and
running.” Once the election is over, he said, an investigation will show
what went wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I’ve seen the worst in people as they
are concerned about the misinformation they’re hearing about a stolen
election. Just horrible, horrible things. They’re threatening us, our
children.
– Ken Matta, former election security officer at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office
Two previous staff in the department were promoted within the county,
and another retired. The remaining staff member when Frisk arrived has
been with the department since 2013, county spokesman James Daniels told
Votebeat. Since Frisk started, he’s recruited new staff to fill the
vacant positions.
The supervisors will receive a full report and presentation on what
happened at a future public meeting, so the county won’t share many
specifics until then.
Frisk, the elections director, told the supervisors that the human
error occurred when transferring ballot style assignments from the
state’s voter registration database system to Electionware, the election
management software the county uses.
Frisk acknowledged proofing did not catch the misstep, which he said
was his fault. “Thorough proofing would have prevented this error,” he
said.
The secretary of state’s extensive logic and accuracy tests don’t
apply to local races, just state, federal and legislative ones. At the
press conference, Volkmer explained that the logic and accuracy tests of
the municipal races “aren’t as robust” as the state’s, and didn’t catch
the errors.
There were 938 different ballot styles for the 108 precincts in Pinal County, Frisk told the supervisors.
“We actually did a test, but two of our municipalities were not
impacted” by the ballot misprint, Volkmer said. “It just happened that
the tests we ran happened to be on the unaffected municipalities.”
Pinal, the third-largest county by population, has seen massive growth in the past two decades. In June, the county employee who oversees human resources told the supervisors about retention and recruitment challenges countywide. Daniels pointed to a national story about local governments’ difficulty hiring and said he didn’t believe the challenge was linked to Pinal County’s growth.
Ross, the recorder, is also on her way out. She isn’t running for
re-election and will probably leave before her term is up, though not
before this year’s elections, she said. Ross hasn’t faced the threats
and harassment her colleagues in other counties have, but plans to leave
because she and her husband are looking to move out of Arizona for
family reasons, she said.
Elections have a “steep learning curve,” and while directions like
the elections procedures manual are helpful, they still take time to
fully understand and implement, Ross said.
“When something like this happens, I believe it does shake someone’s
confidence, because it obviously plays out in a public forum. And that
can weigh on people, whether they want to make elections a career
choice, or they’re just going to go off and find some other
opportunity,” she said.
