TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Cochise County has about 126,000 residents. Their county recorder David Stevens said about 60,000 of those residents will vote in the November election.
Stevens said the Cochise County Board of Supervisors will be voting on whether to hand count all of the ballots including the ones at the voting center after the electronic system counts them.
He said it’s already mandatory to count about 2 percent of the ballots by hand but he’s hoping the board will vote to count 100 percent of them.
He said whether it’s at the voting center or voting early at his office, voters will use a touch screen but it prints a voter’s selections on paper.
He said all voting is done on paper ballots and he’s hoping all of those will be counted by hand.
“It provides more integrity and accountability for the citizens,” Stevens said.
In a letter to the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, Hobbs said hand counting is illegal and risks the integrity and accuracy of the election.
However, Peggy Judd, Cochise County’s supervisor of district 3 said she’s hoping for the hand count.
“That’s just how they used to do it for hundreds of years so I don’t see why we can’t do it now. I mean, like, what about these machines make it so you that you can’t hand count anymore?” Judd said.
Judd said about 150 people have volunteered to count them so far but said they may need more Democrat and independent volunteers.
She said it would take about 25 hours to hand count the ballots if they had 100 volunteers.
In her letter Hobbs said “Notably, hand counting is necessarily time intensive and prone to human error.... it's impossible to complete an accurate hand count of an election with dozens of races on the ballot in time to comply with applicable statutory deadlines..."
However, some voters like Gary Clement said even though he’s confident in the current voting system, he is also comfortable with having all of the votes counted by hand.
“I actually don’t really think there’s an issue with me having them count if that’s what we’re going to end up doing. I think it’s going to be nice and secure and I think everything’s going to get counted right,” Clement said.
Hobbs said hand counting all the ballots would cause mistrust in the elections.
Judd said Hobbs doesn’t represent the people’s best interest.
“I am a representative in a very small group of people and I will fight real hard for them,” Judd said.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors will be voting on whether to hand count all of the ballots next week.
Judd said at that same meeting, the public will have an opportunity to voice their opinions about the potential hand count.