As Arizona gears up for the 2024 General Election, the Republican Party’s effort to present a united front and to improve election security appear to be paying off in the form of courtroom victories, new legislation, and now the restoration of an enhanced bi-partisan observation program at Runbeck election services, Maricopa County’s largest election vendor and a prior bet noir of election skeptics.
But not before a little drama.
The controversy surrounding the observation program began in August 2024, when Representative Alexander Kolodin (R-LD3) learned that Deputy County Attorney Tom Liddy had stepped in to derail the continued implementation of a key Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Runbeck. The MOU was signed on February 28, 2024, after a year-long legislative investigation that started off with a hostile relationship between the Legislature and Runbeck, but eventually evolved into a more collaborative relationship after the company’s change of ownership. It established robust new transparency measures, including an enhanced bipartisan observation program considered crucial for verifying the hand count of early ballots dropped off on Election Day—a critical complement of recent legislative reforms aimed at avoiding the discrepancies that fueled voter concerns related to the 2022 General Election.
Fearing that the rollback of these reforms could undermine election transparency, Kolodin took to the airwaves Thursday night, urging Mitchell to step in and restore the observation program. He emphasized that the fate of the country could be at stake if these measures were not preserved. “There is no good reason for rejecting these common-sense election transparency measures—there are plenty of bad ones,” Kolodin told the Arizona Daily Independent.
Kolodin’s public pressure paid off. AZGOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell quickly got involved and, yesterday in a joint statement, announced that the enhanced observation program would be restored for the general election. Swoboda praised Mitchell’s leadership and reinforced the Party’s improving unity. “When Republicans unite, we win. Let’s stay focused and have a successful election, electing Republicans up and down the ballot,” Swoboda declared.
Mitchell expressed her gratitude for Swoboda’s work in building the party’s infrastructure and ensuring election integrity. “She’s built an organization and infrastructure that is activating our grassroots and supporting Republican candidates across the board,” Mitchell stated.
For his part, Kolodin also expressed satisfaction with the restoration in a written statement, while reaffirming his dedication to working towards agreement on other, outstanding, issues. Echoing Swoboda’s emphasis on party unity, he explained: “In announcing this wonderful turn of events, our Chairwoman emphasized that Republicans are united. And indeed, we are. For yesterday our party showed great unity in working to give President Trump a fairer shot in Arizona, making me proud, once again, to vote a straight Republican ticket. I encourage everyone to do likewise.”
Kolodin again emphasized the importance of the observation program in ensuring the proper functioning of the Timeline Bill, which requires Maricopa County to take a hand count of late-arriving early ballots, and he explained that the bipartisan observation program ensures that these counts are checked against Runbeck’s own hand count, avoiding the discrepancies that caused alarm in 2022.
