'Surprised people didn’t quit': Arizona Republican's shared video draws backlash

A video circulating on social media of Pima County election workers emptying an overfilled ballot drop box prompted threats against them that county officials have reported to law enforcement, county officials said.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said she reported the threats this week to Tucson police and the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center. Cázares-Kelly also said the workers followed all laws and required procedures.

“I’m surprised people didn’t quit on the spot,” she said in an interview with Votebeat Arizona Thursday.

The video was shot Tuesday as a bipartisan team of two workers and a supervisor began unloading the drop box, which has a capacity of 1,500 ballot envelopes but at the time had 3,000 stuffed into it, Cázares-Kelly said.

The 42-second video shows the workers pulling out ballot envelopes and placing them into a transfer bag. It also shows one of the workers telling a woman that the box is full, and she can instead place her ballot envelope directly into the transfer bag. The video was reposted by some social media accounts with large followings, though Votebeat couldn’t immediately determine the initial source of the video.

Cázares-Kelly said the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center — which says it is a joint effort between the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Arizona Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies — initially alerted her to the posts about the video late Tuesday.

Cázares-Kelly said she became aware Wednesday of threats posted on social media, some of which she said have since been removed. She read some to Votebeat, including one that said, “Shoot them, shoot them. Why are people just standing there and filming rather than stopping them?”

In a statement and a subsequent interview, Cázares-Kelly, a Democrat, stressed that the workers, who were making an emergency pickup because the box was overfilled, were following all laws and protocols. They wore lanyards with identification badges and were putting the ballot envelopes into transfer bags, which they subsequently sealed with zip ties and logged according to chain-of-custody procedures, she said. One of the workers is holding the zip ties as she moves envelopes from the box to the bag in the video.

In the statement, the Pima County Recorder’s Office said the team followed all necessary protocols, including taking the ballots to the ballot processing center “in a rental car clearly marked as an Official Election vehicle,” notifying the main office of arrival and departure times, and completing required transfer documentation.

The drop box was at a county recorder building, and in the video, a surveillance camera can be seen on the wall.

Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda, who is also a certified elections officer in Arizona, said she saw the video and also saw nothing wrong.

“What I see is three election workers doing their job,” Swoboda said. “They open the drop box and it’s full and that’s the sign of a good turnout.”

Swoboda said she tried calling the Pima County Recorder’s Office after seeing the video and the social media response, but the lines were jammed. Swoboda said the posts on the social media platform X mischaracterizing the video are part of a pattern in which innocent people are endangered by posts inaccurately suggesting they are doing something wrong. She said this trend is dangerous amid rising political violence.

Among those reposting the video Tuesday was state Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Republican, who wrote, “Well this looks super duper secure,” adding a frowning emoji. Reached for comment about whether he had done due diligence before reposting the video and told of the threats, Hoffman, a Republican, said the questions show why people don’t trust the media.

“What did I say that would lead to them getting death threats?” he asked.

Hoffman and others, including state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Republican who is running for secretary of state, also posted on Election Day citing reports that Cázares-Kelly’s office was turning away political party observers at polling places. But there were no polling places, since the election in Pima County was a mail-only election. The observers were turned away from ballot-replacement centers.

The state Republican Party account, controlled by Swoboda, tweeted that there is no legal requirement to allow observers into a ballot replacement center, and that Pima County has never allowed them there.

Hoffman said Swoboda “sounds more like a Democrat these days.” Kolodin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cázares-Kelly said people should call her office for verification when they see social media posts accusing election workers of wrongdoing.

“I really hope that people can recognize the impact this is having on the security of our elections and our democracy,” Cázares-Kelly said. “Our elections are secure, they’re transparent, and I want to say that they’re safe, but right now I can’t say that with this type of activity.”

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

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