(bright music) - Good evening, and welcome to this special edition of "Arizona Horizon."

I'm Ted Simons.

Tonight, "What Counts?

An Arizona Votes Forum."

The 2024 election is in the rear view mirror, there were fewer issues including claims of fraud than the previous two national elections, but does that mean that election denialism is a thing of the past?

We've asked a bipartisan panel of election officials past and present to join us for a discussion on the state of the state's elections and where we go from here.

Tonight's special is presented in partnership with Arizona State University's Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory, and joining us tonight, Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory Director and former chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates.

Also with us, the current chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Thomas Galvin.

Also from the Board, County Supervisor Debbie Lesko.

And we are also joined by Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, and also with US, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

Panel, good to have you all here.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We're talking about elections coming off an election year, but why not?

Because Bill, we came off a doozy, and I guess the question is, we survived, now what?

- Yeah, we did.

We had very successful elections that were run across Arizona, and some really good news.

Polling was done of our citizens and how they felt about the election results, actually the running of the elections, and they felt good.

So that's encouraging, both Republicans and Democrats.

But of course, the question is, next time around, if the results are different, will we see different results in how people feel about those elections?

So some good news, but might still be a little too early to tell.

- Yeah, Thomas, what'd you see as far as 2024?

And why was it so uneventful?

- Well it was uneventful because you had candidates accept the results of the elections in all races and in both parties, but also here in Maricopa County, we did a great job in running elections, and we had three substantial elections to oversee and run last year, we had the presidential primary, we had the July primary, and we had the November general election.

There's a lot of planning and preparation that goes into running these elections years in advance, and our team just did a phenomenal job and pulled it off with minimal complaints.

- Yeah, Debbie, obviously new to the Board of Supervisors and election's kind of making a big focus on that so far.

From what you've seen and from what you've heard from last year, your thoughts?

- Well, I guess I'd like to say that I love who won the presidential, so that makes me happy.

But I am so far very impressed with the way that the county runs elections.

Now of course, I have pushed for, and we got an audit of the election processes in Maricopa County because we wanna make sure that everything is done right, and if there are needed reforms, then we can change them or go to the state legislature.

- As far as Pima County, Southern Arizona, what did you see, was anything different in 2024 substantially than the previous two elections?

I know Maricopa County, we had a whole lot of things going on up here.

- We had a number of issues, delayed ballots due to issues within the county.

But other than that, we felt like people were very informed about the voting process.

We felt like people were very happy to participate.

And we had a lot of lines, we had a lot of lines of folks, but there was this feeling of excitement, I think for the most part.

I don't think that there was complaints.

People were generally just very excited to participate.

- And Adrian, again, we're hearing success stories here, certainly compared to 2020 and 2022.

Why do you think that is?

- Well, we prepared, we endeavored across the state to make sure that all of the counties had A, the resources that they need.

We worked very carefully with federal, state, and local law enforcement, supply management, county managers, just about everybody who's involved.

We did tabletop exercises, and I think one of the things that's really important, and one of the biggest unsung successes is that all of that culminated on Election Day, and something quite extraordinary, and I don't think a lot of people realize, there were about 15 bomb threats on Election Day in 2024.

And we saw, but for the occasional lines that happen sometimes, minimal disruptions to our election system.

In fact, most people don't even know that that happened.

And that's because we coordinated this training with all of those partners, all of the counties participated.

I think Arizona's election administration team, in spite of the newness of so many of them, because we've had such turnover, did a phenomenal and outstanding job.

And I'm just glad to have been part of the team.

- Sticking with you then, is election denialism as we've known it dead?

- I think as we've known it, it is.

I genuinely believe that.

I think it is however morphing into something different, and I worry about what that different thing is.

I could speculate, but I'm not really sure.

But it can't be something that folks really hang their hat on anymore because guess what, we're running audits, we're doing a lot more training.

There is a lot more transparency than there's ever been.

Moreover, the public understands our systems better because we communicate better about how they run.

And that's a credit to everyone here.

- Gabriella, do you agree with that?

Do you think the communication helped matters in 2024?

- I do.

I do.

I think that the public's need to have an explanation of the process and to understand the policies and procedures, I think that's frontline, I think the demand is there.

They're actively seeking it, and we're responding to that.

We're making sure that all of that information is publicly available and easy for people to understand.

And I think it has forever changed.

I don't think we're ever gonna go back to sleepy, quiet people ignoring the process.

- Debbie, election denialism, as we've known it, as you've known it, is it dead?

- No.

- Yeah, I didn't think you'd think so.

- No, no.

And when I go to different meetings, specifically Republican district meetings, there's still concern about the elections.

And that is why when I got on the board on the very first day I was sworn in, I said that I was really pushing for an audit of our election processes in Maricopa County because I don't know about the rest of you, but I get people that send me videos, they send me pictures, they say all kinds of things have gone on.

I don't know, I was in Congress, and then before then, the state legislature, I didn't keep track of every single thing.

So I think we need an independent audit from a reputable firm to make sure that everything is being done right.

And then I'm hoping that the majority of the people will feel comfortable if that comes out accurately.

- Tom, if election denialism is still alive, is still kicking around in there in certain spots amongst certain quarters, if it's not gone after 2024, is it ever gonna go?

- Well, I think what we should be worried about is what we can control.

And as Supervisor Lesko said, that we are now doing a really comprehensive review of our own procedures.

But having overseen elections over the last few cycles, I really will put together people in three different buckets, is that people who do accept the results of the elections feel satisfied that we're doing a good job.

The people with legitimate questions who wanna see us do better.

And then obviously you're gonna have that very small segment of people like grifters who are just trying to make money off of it.

But what can we control?

We can control the aspects to make sure that elections are safe, secure, and transparent.

We do that with a technological review that we're doing this year, and Supervisor Lesko and I and our colleagues are overseeing that in a comprehensive review of process.

But the other aspect is communication.

We live in a digital age.

We live in a social media age.

All of us have a phone at the touch of our fingers.

All of these people are able to access this information.

That's a lot for them to process.

It's incumbent upon us to be smart, creative, and proactive in new ways that we can communicate with folks, show them what we're doing, and why we're doing it.

- Bill, you've went through the ringer here as far as elections and election denialism is concerned.

Those of us who have been around the block here, we never had this going on before 2020.

Long lines maybe, concerns there, but this business of the election was rigged, there was fraud, all these things that were never proven.

And yet people still believe.

If you still believe that, will you always believe that?

- Yeah.

Well here's the thing.

First I thought, what is it about elections?

But you know what, it's not just elections.

There is unfortunately a loss of trust and a loss of faith in all of our institutions that we're dealing with as a nation.

And we have to be clear-eyed about that.

And I think people here today have spoken about transparency.

And that's the key.

That's certainly what Maricopa County has done, that's what the Secretary of State's office has done, is swing the doors open and show people processes, help them understand.

And I think that that works out well.

But it's not just elections, it's a broader concern about our institutions.

- You say that you think that works out well.

Is there proof that that works out well?

Because I thought, like I'm in the business here, so I hear all these reports, I see all these things.

It seemed like a lot of information was communicated, and yet you still have the holdouts.

- Well, again, I think there are people that you're not gonna be able to reach.

What I'm interested in are those people who have open minds, and in particular, someone who maybe has a family member who will not look at certain, maybe they won't turn on Channel 8 and watch this program, but maybe they'll talk to their family member who has had access to the facts about the information about how elections are really run.

And maybe they can have a discussion at Thanksgiving dinner that will open their eyes just a little bit.

And maybe we will then still have a chance to bring that person along.

- Debbie, those people that you meet, are their eyes ready to be opened, or are they convinced that there's skullduggery going on?

- I think a majority of the people that I meet with are open-minded.

Now there's a section of people that I don't think we're ever gonna change their mind, quite frankly, if God Himself did the audit, they might not trust the audit, you know?

But I think most people are reasonable.

And I've been going around, I call it the road show, and I go around talking about what state law guidelines are in elections, what can be done and what can't be done.

For instance, there's some people that say they want Election Day only voting.

And I said, "Okay, Debbie Lesko cannot do that.

The county supervisors cannot do that.

The state legislature needs to change the law."

Other people say, "We want all hand counting."

I say, "Okay, that's a state law that is automated tabulation."

So if you want hand counting, you have to go to the state legislature and change it.

So I'm just trying to inform people of what the laws are, what the division is between the county recorder and the election department under the Board of Supervisors.

And most people are accepting of that.

Not everyone though.

- No, no.

Andrew, is this just a little bit of knowledge is going a long way with folks, they think they know what they're talking about, they think they know the intricacies, but they really don't?

- Well, look, the question really is, I think Bill made the right point.

Do we have faith in these folks who take an oath to uphold and protect the laws and the constitutions, the US Constitution and the state constitution to do the jobs that we pay them to do?

The four of us sitting here are paid by taxpayers to do specific jobs.

I think we do them well.

We may have differing opinions on politics and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, the folks who run our elections are our neighbors, they're regular folks as well.

And so do we believe that they're doing well?

Do we trust that they're gonna do the job?

And that lack of faith or that diminishing faith that Bill was talking about is of great concern because at the end of the day, we trust when we're driving down the highway that the folks in the other lanes aren't gonna swerve in front of us.

We trust that the county health inspectors are gonna take care of our restaurants, and we trust that all of these folks who live with us in our society are gonna do their jobs.

It's this one piece though that I think is most damaging because it is the most impactful across the board, and it touches everyone.

I'm hoping that we can learn to have faith again in one another regardless of political differences, and get back to the place where we can really kind of hold our neighbors up to that sort of faith and dignity that I think pretty much all of us deserve.

- Yeah, the idea of trust and the lack of trust, are you seeing that down in Pima County?

- Absolutely, we get questions about things like, why are you using vehicles with out of state driver's license plates, things like that, people are questioning, and that has to do with rental cars because the county doesn't have enough for us to borrow.

And so the questions that we're seeing come through our door are just, they're very elevated.

They're very close.

But I think that the more we're able to explain the process, having a voter call in and being able to say, "Let me take a look at your voting record," and maybe they didn't even recognize that, like oh, that's something you can do?

You can find out exactly where my ballot was and when it was mailed and when it was received back?

And once they understand that we have all of that information documented, or that we have five of the last five transactions or more of their voting record and the documents that go along with it, they feel a bigger sense of relief.

And they walk away often feeling confident about the process.

- You know, one of the reasons that so many people don't feel confident about the process is that it seems like it takes an awful long time to get winners either announced by the AP or the official results.

And Tom, I know you're big on this, you've been pushing for a plan to get to, I think it's called your 95 in one plan, right?

You can explain that if you will.

And again, the idea of why is this now so important compared to years past?

- Right, well your question is regarding how fast are we gonna be counting tabulated votes after Election Day?

Right now in Maricopa County, it takes us about 10 or 14 days after Election Day to get everything totally wrapped up.

The problem for us, as I have noticed, within 48 hours, the rest of the country starts getting wobbly and starts asking questions.

You even have business people in the business community saying, "Hey, what's wrong with Arizona?"

And I would hate for anyone outside of our state to say what's wrong with you, but it is a function of state law.

And I believe that we should and could have 95% of votes tabulated by Election Day.

We do that by moving the cutoff date for late early drop-offs.

This is when people are dropping off early mail-in ballots on Election Day, which defeats the whole purpose of early mail-in voting.

Also, I think we need more government buildings to host polling sites because we're gonna have more people voting in person.

And I really believe that we should have in-person voting on the Saturday and Monday before Election Day.

The reason why I am doing this, most of all, is not because of people who are concerned about when races are called.

I have a concern for our election workers and our volunteers.

This has become a considerable strain in our system.

And I don't think it's sustainable, especially when we have to pick out polling sites, every two years, we have to depend on local private facilities to host these polling sites.

And I don't think we can continue doing that.

We need to find new ways, especially as I said in this information where you can get information at the touch of a button, people are ready to hear results as soon as possible.

- Bill, does that make sense to you?

Especially when critics will say, "Wait a minute, we don't do anything at all," compromise accuracy, and they think that this might compromise accuracy.

- Well, I know certainly from my experience in the 2022 election when I was the chair, we heard this from all around the country.

Why is it taking Maricopa County so long?

So I appreciate Tom's leadership as well as Supervisor Lesko's leadership on it.

But what we have to make sure is we're having an honest discussion on this and people understand the ramifications of it.

When you do that, you may have, despite the best efforts of trying to educate people that they're gonna change the rules, you might end up having longer lines on Election Day, or it might be less convenient for folks.

So I think it's good to put this on the table, but we need to have a full discussion as a community, as a state, and getting back to this central question, what is it that we're most focused on as voters, right?

Is it the speed with which the results come in?

Is it the accuracy?

Is it voter participation?

We need to look at all these things and have an honest discussion.

- Ted, I think what's really important here is that this is a kind of a case of the tail wagging the dog.

When the networks make their call, they're making their best estimate.

And that's what everybody's talking about, results.

Those aren't official results.

We have to have an honest conversation.

Just because a network makes the call doesn't mean that's what the result is gonna be.

And we've seen it time and time again, cycle after cycle.

Arizona was once very comfortable.

When John McCain was winning elections by 30, 25 points, you could make the call and that was that.

But we have a changing demographic, a changing politics in Arizona, and now the margins are tighter.

So they can't make the call that quickly.

That makes some people uncomfortable.

The reality is this.

I don't think that we should be making policy that impacts voters' ability to vote the way that they like doing and the way that they've done for years and years just because the networks wanna make their call quicker because that's what this proposal does.

So Tom and I disagree on this, respectfully of course, I think we ought to find different ways to make this quicker if we need to, but I don't know that we need to.

I think we can talk about it differently and continue to educate the public to make sure they understand what those results are.

They are unofficial network predictions.

- Those late early drop-offs, though, every recorder I've ever interviewed just hates them and says it really mucks up the system.

You agree with that?

- We had about 15,000 in this last election cycle, which was about 3% of all ballots cast in Pima County.

That isn't the major issue with the delay in results.

And with all due respect, we do serve the people, we serve the voters, we don't serve campaigns, we don't serve the media, right?

And so Arizona has voter-friendly policies, and that I think should be celebrated.

And I think, I understand that in Maricopa County, that's a much larger issue.

But in other areas, we are more concerned, I'm more concerned with the accessibility of voters, especially in rural counties.

Pima County, we have the (indistinct) nation, which is the size of Connecticut.

There are only nine voting locations on Election Day.

There's only one early voting location where people could drop off ballots.

That poses a considerable roadblock to people participating in our democracy.

- What do you make of this, Debbie?

I mean obviously you're new to the board, but this is an important issue.

- In Maricopa County, the reason that it takes longer to get the results is because we have so many people, hundreds of thousands of people that drop off their mail-in ballot that they requested and they don't mail it in.

Instead, they wait till the last minute on Election Day and drop it off.

Well, all of those signatures on the outside of the envelope have to be verified.

All of this takes a long time.

So Tom and I really were supportive of the legislation that went through the state legislature this year that was vetoed by the governor because it would've sped up the results, and we would've got 95% of the results by election night.

I think it's reasonable, and if people want to mail it in, they can mail it in.

If they wanna go in-person, they can go in-person.

But we should expect that people, if they want the results right away, they need to either mail it in or get it in by Friday of the day before the election, Friday before the election.

- How do you respond to that?

- Well, again, this is the tail wagging the dog.

We're not talking about actual election results, we're talking about predictions by networks.

It's not quicker results.

We've had 10 to 14 day results in Maricopa County for decades, but how many more voters do we have?

Literally millions.

And so when you think about the work that we've done, the amount has increased so much, and yet our timelines are basically the same.

The election department has done a bang up job really making these processes go a lot quicker.

And so I think we really need to kind of take a step back from this particularly exciting talking point and look at it for really what it is.

- Ted, I think we really averted disaster here because what if, we had seven swing states last year in the presidential election, all seven swung one way.

But what if this presidential election came down to Arizona?

It would've come down to Maricopa County.

It would've made 2020 look like child's play.

I think this is important from an operational standpoint.

We do believe, Debbie and I, that we have to do what's best for voters.

And we think this actually does what's best for voters because of those things that I outlined, they actually provide more accessibility for voters with increased ability to vote in different locations and opening up the days you can vote in-person.

- What do you make of the final idea, the law that's there, the idea, 95 in one, is it time to make that change?

- Honestly, I think that Adrian is right.

We need to figure out, we wanna make sure that the tail isn't wagging the dog.

We need to make a decision, come to a consensus, as a state, as a county, what is it that's most important?

I think that the concern is that we could do this and then we find out we now have long lines on Election Day.

We need to be ready for that.

If you educate properly and people hear it, you won't.

But we have to make sure.

There will be some unintended consequences.

- And real quickly, I want to get to cybersecurity.

We'll start with you.

The idea of cutting funding to cybersecurity, whether it's state or federal, and we see what's happening there.

How confident are you that we are ready and protected in terms of cybersecurity?

- Well, we have been prepared in the past few elections very well because of great partnerships between county, CISA, so the federal government, the state government, the Secretary of State's office.

I'm concerned by what we're seeing coming out of the new administration, cutting funds for both partnerships between the federal government and state and local as well as cybersecurity.

So I'm concerned, and we need to, again, have an honest discussion on this as well.

- [Ted] Gabrielle, are we ready if those federal funds go away?

- We're doing our very best.

We're having to get creative with our funding sources, that's for sure.

And I think that we're gonna continue to rely on our community partners to try to get where we need to be.

But the lack of funding and lack of infrastructure and lack of investment in elections should be startling to everyone.

I think that we have offices that are operating out of buildings that are too small.

We have low paid staff, high turnover.

It's a stressful job.

We need to have meaningful investment in elections if we're to continue to have an election every single year.

- Maricopa County ready for this if this happens?

- We are ready.

Maricopa County has a robust cybersecurity program.

It is quite impressive.

And the thing is that we get attacked daily by Russia, Iran, and China.

These are our adversaries.

And every single day, they're trying to undermine our systems, not just Maricopa County, but all counties around the country.

But ultimately, the buck stops with us.

So we have to be responsible for what we oversee and maintain.

But if there's a question of funding, then I think we should be talking to the state legislature and the governor, if you need it, go talk to them at the state capitol because they need to be invested in this as well.

They're the ones who pass the state laws, but they want us to implement it.

But Maricopa County is quite secure in terms of its cybersecurity profile.

- Are you comfortable with funding for cybersecurity being cut?

- I think we're gonna do a good job in Maricopa County.

I mean, I work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

They're all concerned about cybersecurity, not only for elections, but for other things.

So we have invested in that.

But we also have to realize we have a $37 trillion debt in the federal government.

And so there are gonna have to be cuts.

Whether that's for cybersecurity or something else, I don't know.

But the states and the local governments are just going to have to pick up the slack.

- All right, state elections, Chief, you comfortable hearing that?

- No, I'm not comfortable at all.

It's as if the drawbridge has been opened and the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians and the North Koreans are being invited to mess with our elections, because while Maricopa County may be very well prepared, and I was a Maricopa County recorder, they've got an incredible information technology and security system.

Kudos to them.

What about Greenlee County?

What about Pima County?

What about Apache County?

And they all connect to a state system that is perennially underfunded.

And so I would agree the state needs to step up, but also, while the Trump administration has the ability to shuffle the deck chairs and move people around, the cutting of services is devastating to our security profile for elections across the board.

And so let them do what they gotta do.

But we haven't seen a plan on how they're gonna bring those folks back and bring those systems back that we desperately need.

- Is that something that you would be going to court over?

- Well, we have already written letters.

So I've written some sternly worded letter worded letters to the Department of Homeland Security, to the president, and to our congressional delegation.

We're fighting like hell to make sure we can continue to secure Arizona's elections and working with secretaries in a bipartisan way across the United States of America.

There are deep and serious concerns that we are vulnerable, and it's not gonna be through folks that are well-funded like Maricopa County.

It's gonna be through some of our Achilles heels.

- Bill, I wanna give you the last word on everything here that we've discussed, and panel, thank you again for joining us.

This has been a great discussion.

It's weird to talk about elections at this time of year, but you have to, considering what's happened and what's happening likely to happen in the future.

Are you confident that the roughest waters are behind us?

- I am confident that the roughest waters are behind us.

I think that we've been through a lot.

We've been tested, we've come out on the other end.

But this is what people need to understand.

We can't just snap our fingers and say things are back to the way they were when it was quiet.

We have a new level of scrutiny to elections, and that's okay.

People deserve to understand elections.

But people who are in elections, it's a tough job, and we need to thank them, we need to appreciate what they do because it is truly the foundation of our democracy.

- Well, I want to thank you, and I want to thank our panel, our guests.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It's been a great discussion.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you so much for joining us on this special edition of "Arizona Horizon."

You have a great evening.

(bright music)