Arizona
AZ Family: After plague of issues in 2022, Pinal County vows to be ready for upcoming election
Dennis Welch of AZ Family reports on the lessons Pinal County learned from its election administration problems in 2022 and to prepare the 2024 election.
Two years ago, Pinal County was at the center of a series of election failures: thousands of ballots with significant printing errors were sent to voters, several polling locations ran out of ballots on Election Day, and hundreds of votes were not tabulated until a recount was ordered.
“I think the 2022 elections that everybody comments about was an eye-opening experience,” said Pinal County recorder Dana Lewis, who says her office learned harsh lessons from that election and is now ready for November.
Since taking over the recorder’s office in 2022, Lewis has helped oversee significant changes, starting with a new $32 million voting center. Inside the 53,000-square-foot building, officials can monitor every early ballot drop box in the county on screens and store all the equipment needed to run an election.
It also means printing enough ballots to prevent them from running out again. Regarding the misprinted ballots, Lewis says they’ve added more proofreaders to prevent that mistake from happening again.