Reflections on a Visit to Maricopa County
As we wrap up our Chanukah celebrations, I want to share a few thoughts on my experience touring the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as part of a faith leader delegation organized by our amazing partners at the JCRC of Greater Phoenix.
In response to relentless attacks on the integrity of Arizona elections, County Recorder (and Hillel alum!) Stephen Richer and his colleagues have opened their doors to educate and empower community leaders to serve as trusted messengers for good information about the election process. As I toured the facility alongside 40 local faith and community leaders, I was stunned by both the logistical complexity of the operation and by the integrity and ingenuity of the professionals who run it.
Maricopa County has put in place a remarkable array of checks and balances, security systems, and controls to ensure that every eligible voter can participate in the political process by casting a ballot and that every ballot will be counted fairly. For example, they have:
Publicly viewable, 24/7/365 video surveillance of the entire facility. We were reminded throughout the tour that we were being watched – and likely recorded – by people looking for evidence of election tampering.
Ballot-counting machines connected by visible wires to an air-gapped tabulation computer server, which was itself housed in a locked, glass-walled room to which only four people have key-card access, and which can only be entered by people working in pairs.
While I was impressed by these extraordinary efforts to ensure the integrity of our electoral process, they mostly just made me sad. These systems represent a desperate attempt to counter widespread, false claims of impropriety on the part of local election officials. When asked about his biggest concerns, the light-hearted Richer became somber. Quietly, he said, “I think I could get through anything but one of my people getting hurt or killed.”
It's a hell of a thing to think that civil servants working to ensure that each of us gets to exercise one of our most precious rights fear for their safety and maybe even their lives. But if they can show up to work every day under those kind of circumstances, I think it’s the least the rest of us can do to get their backs. I’m grateful to be in this work with all of you and hope you’ll consider joining our efforts to bring some light in the darkness to election officials around the country.
— Aaron Dorfman, Executive Director, A More Perfect Union