In rural Cochise County, Arizona, there will likely be a delay before the official results of the November 8th elections are known. That’s because a panel of county supervisors this week voted along party lines to order a manual hand count of all ballots after the voting is concluded. There was some confusion over two different versions of the plan, but the measure eventually passed with the panel’s sole Democrat voting against the proposal. Concerns were raised about the potential liability of the supervisors in expected lawsuits challenging the recount process. The thing missing from all of these objections, however, was precisely why anyone would object to having a verifiable second count of the ballots to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the voting machines. (Associated Press)

The two Republicans on a county board in southeastern rural Arizona approved a proposal 2-1 Monday for a hand-count of all ballots in the Nov. 8 election after rejecting a differently worded motion during a chaotic meeting.

Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby voted for the measure after rejecting a first proposal that mentioned 100 volunteers who had already been vetted and trained for the hand count. The third board member, chairwoman Ann English, is a Democrat who voted against both proposals, arguing that the country’s insurance would not protect it from expected lawsuits.

“I implore you not to attempt to order this separate hand-count,” said County Attorney Brian McIntyre, a Republican. He said such action would be unlawful and supervisors could be held personally liable in a civil action.

These types of questions are coming up in many places around the country. Unease over the accuracy of the count in the 2020 election and doubts about the integrity of some of the voting machine systems that are commonly utilized seem to be driving a push toward older, low-tech methods of tallying the ballots of voters. And wherever voting machines are used – particularly touchscreen machines that may or may not produce a paper record – better and more reliable methods of conducting recounts are being sought.

In that sense, Cochise County may be a microcosm of a larger trend that could grow more broadly as we move toward the next presidential election. The objections being raised in this week’s vote seem rather speculative at best. Assuming the human election monitors who check and count the ballots are doing so accurately with representatives from both parties supervising the work, what basis would anyone have for suing the county supervisors? And even more to the point, who would object to a hand count in the first place? Wouldn’t that be the only and most obvious way to ensure the accuracy of the totals?

The process of tallying the votes after the polls close isn’t the only bone of contention in Arizona. The Sheriff in the Phoenix metropolitan area has begun dispatching deputies to keep watch over ballot drop boxes located around the city. This was reportedly done because unappointed individuals, some of them armed, have been reported standing watch around the boxes and potentially intimidating voters.

The sheriff in metropolitan Phoenix said Monday he’s stepped up security around ballot drop boxes after a series of incidents involving people keeping watch on the boxes and taking video of voters after they were apparently inspired by lies about the 2020 election.

On Friday, deputies responded when two masked people carrying guns and wearing bulletproof vests showed up at a drop box in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb. The secretary of state said her office has received six cases of potential voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a threatening email sent to the state elections director.

How this became a prosecutable offense is something of a mystery. It’s true that voter intimidation is a crime and can not be tolerated. But proving “intimidation” is a rather dicey proposition for prosecutors if there is no verbal interaction between the voter and the observer. Simply standing in the vicinity of a drop box is obviously not a crime unless you’re going to try to trump up something involving loitering. And if the people observing the boxes have the proper permits to open carry, there’s nothing illegal about being armed while doing so.

The bigger issue should really be whether we need to have drop boxes in the first place. You would never operate a polling place without trained volunteers and/or local election officials supervising the process. Why is it now acceptable to have boxes placed out in the public square with nobody keeping an eye on how many people are using them and counting how many ballots each person deposits? If anything, this practice only serves to further undermine confidence in the electoral process at a time when the nation’s confidence is in significant need of improvement.