August 19, 2021 / Modified aug 19, 2021 9:03 a.m.

Arizona county seeks reimbursement for new voting machines

Maricopa County demands state Senate pay $2.8M to cover the costs of replacing vote-counting machines used in Legislature's election review.

Senate election audit The Arizona Senate's contractors count ballots from Maricopa County inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum during May 2021.
Andrew Oxford/pool photo

Arizona’s largest county is demanding the state Senate pay $2.8 million to cover the costs of replacing vote-counting machines that the state’s top election official says can't be used again because of their handling during the Senate Republicans’ 2020 election review.

Maricopa County’s GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to seek reimbursement for machines that Senate Republicans gave to contractors led by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said the machines were compromised because they were given to people not certified to handle them.

She said she'd move to decertify them if the county didn’t replace them. Senate President Karen Fann says the machines were not broken or tampered with.

By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona