Think Tank guests Stephen Richer, Adrian Fontes explain Arizona’s election process

Arizona’s elections are run by the 15 counties under procedures specified by law and under a manual issued by the Secretary of State’s Office.

Our guests this week include Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, whose office shares responsibility for executing our elections with the County Board of Supervisors. His immediate predecessor and current Secretary of State-elect is Adrian Fontes, who is our second guest this week.

We discuss the running of Arizona’s elections this week. We start by discussing how this responsibility is divided between state and county officials – essentially, who does what?

But in the current environment we focus most of our attention on questions like:

· What security measures are in place to prevent cheating of any sort?

· The Election Day printer issue: what really happened?

· What would it take to count votes more rapidly? And would voters be willing to accept the tradeoffs required to do so (like requiring early ballots be returned earlier than currently)?

Everything you ever wanted to know about how our elections are actually conducted. Facts, not speculation, in this week’s Think Tank.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 6-7 p.m. and Sunday 9-10 p.m.

Podcasts are available after broadcast. Older shows are archived at www.mikeoneil.org.