Maricopa County elections officials ready for busy midterms

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – One hundred or so men and women scurried about in a large office as they processed ballots from the final week of early voting. 

That was the scene Tuesday at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, where Communications Officer Adrian Borunda expressed great pride in the work. Workers are processing ballots in Arizona's most populous county, which allocated $44.2 million of taxpayers' money for this year's elections.

So far this cycle, the Phoenix facility known as MCTEC has taken in roughly 630,000 ballots, which Borunda said represented an increase of 50,000 (or 8.6%) from where the county was at this point four years ago.

This year featured its share of drama over disagreements between the Recorder's Office and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over running elections, but the two sides reached an understanding. And Borunda said this year’s midterm has exemplified what makes the state special.

“These are civically driven people that want to come and do their duty, and it's our job to protect them,” Borunda told The Center Square. “So we do everything we can in that aspect.”

Civic duty

On the final Tuesday before the Nov. 3 election, rows of chairs were taken up by Arizonans of various ages at the election center. They were looking over ballots that needed to be fixed for errors such as incomplete marks or soiled conditions. The workers also were tabulating ballots that passed through one of the oversized machines in the tabulation room.

Borunda stressed that each ballot station features two workers, who are registered with opposing political parties to avoid any tampering or misconduct.

So far, he’s seen no sign of a slowdown when it comes to interest in working at the facility, which will be phased out over the next year for a new $18 million, four-story facility with three times the square footage on the other side of the Union Pacific tracks.

Borunda said the county has had little trouble hiring north of 3,000 temporary full-time election workers this cycle, speaking to the shared desire to keep the gears of democracy moving in the 48th state.

“We're constantly getting people coming in and still wanting to do the job, and the best sentiment of how people are feeling in the county about elections is whether or not they're participating, right?” Borunda said. “We're looking at above-average participation, and we're meeting our employment goals.

“There’s motivation to want to do the work, want to keep doing their civic duty, and keeping you know democracy alive by doing this process,” he added.

For now, workers are processing ballots in a bare-bones warehouse.

“For decades, this building has been kind of the heartbeat of elections in Maricopa County,” Borunda said. “It's where voters' ballots have come to be tabulated and where results have been released for the county.

“That's changing soon as we're getting a new building," Borunda told The Center Square. "And the county's investing in the work we do here and the work we're going to do in the future in terms of continuing to have safe, secure, and transparent elections for voters here in Maricopa County. And I think the workers in here would be proud of the work they've done in the past and the work they're going to do in the future.”