Arizona counties invest millions in new facilities to reassure voters of election security, transparency

Flagstaff, Arizona — Laura Huenneke, secretary of the Coconino County Democratic Party in Arizona, remembers what used to pass for an election day problem.

“A rattlesnake came into the facility one day and they had to shut down counting and evacuate people,” Huenneke told CBS News. “No election official today would tell you that they’re worried about rattlesnakes as their major disruption to voting or to counting.”

These days, in the battleground state of Arizona, where election denialism has been rampant, rattlesnakes are the good old days for Huenneke and her Republican counterpart William Culbertson, chair of the Coconino County Republican Committee. Together, they monitor vote counting in the county, which includes the city of Flagstaff.

“There’s always going to be somebody that has that raised eyebrow,” Culbertson said.

According to CBS News polling, 56% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans nationwide are “very confident” in their state’s ability to hold elections accurately and fairly, but 32% of Republicans are “not confident,” as opposed to just 8% of Democrats. 

“All those processes are very much transparent,” said Eslir Musta, elections director for Coconino County, a mostly Democratic area. “…The goal is to kind of have this brutal transparency for the public.”

In Coconino County, that brutal transparency takes the form of about $1.5 million spent to upgrade the main vote-counting facility. 

“The way I see it is it’s also like a reinvestment in some of, like, the pillars of our fundamental, like, contract with the public,” Musta said.

Arizona’s Pinal County, which is mostly Republican, also went on a spending spree, building a new facility of its own. 

“How do you put a dollar sign on democracy?” Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis asked.

The ballot boxes in Pinal County are equipped with GPS tracking devices, something Lewis says can reassure the public all election equipment is protected.

“I am able to track every one of these cages with a GPS unit on it within five feet of movement,” Lewis said.

It’s a sign of how local officials are trying to temper election skeptics, like those who falsely believe tabulation machines are connected to the internet.

Lewis explains that its tabulation system is a “closed gateway” in which everything that gets tabulated in its election facility goes into a “black box” that is located in the same room as the ballots. That box is not connected to anything outside the room, Lewis emphasizes.

That also applies to Coconino County.

“The tabulators are not connected to the internet,” Musta said.

It’s an investment that elections officials say is starting to pay off with voters.

“I think more people are coming around, so it’s getting better,” Culbertson said. “I still see a few skeptics.”

It’s a standard that Musta is ready to meet.

“There’s nothing to hide,” Musta said. “There’s never been anything to hide.”