Voters weigh in on Cochise County Board of Supervisors' vote

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — People are weighing in on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors' vote to postpone canvassing midterm election results.

Amy Gaudet is the Editor in Chief for a student-led political journal at the University of Arizona.

She said she agrees with the decision to postpone canvassing results because she wants them to be accurate.

“If that does mean postponing the certification to make sure the election is as airtight as possible, and the results are undetectable, then I think that’s something I support,” said Gaudet.

Gaudet interned for the Secretary of State’s office and saw what it takes to gather results.

“I saw just how difficult it can be just to prepare for an election to happen. I had a team of interns working 6-8 weeks just to check the ballots to make sure the ballot machines were working properly,” she said. “Each of the ballots that go through the machines has to be checked three times to make sure that there are no errors.”

She said she agrees with those wanting to be sure when it comes to accuracy, but only for the right reasons. “But of course, there will always be people on the right who want to challenge the election process. And that is when I think it’s a mistake. I think that it undermines voters' confidence in our democracy, which is so important now to make sure that people have every confidence that the vote they are casting has an impact, not only will it count but it will be counted correctly.”

The Chair of the Cochise County Democratic Party, Elisabeth Tyndall, weighed in on what this means for voters within the county.

“At the end of the day, this is just disenfranchising our voters. It’s not just democrats that are being disenfranchised, it’s republicans, and independents and all of the voters in our county risk being disenfranchised by this,” said Tyndall.

KGUN 9 reached out to the Republican Party of Cochise County. They declined to comment.