Maricopa County board approves $400,000 election review after debate over vendor and scope

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted 4–1 to approve a contract not to exceed $400,000 with a private consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive review of county elections procedures, including chain of custody, physical security, candidate filing, temporary worker hiring and training, ballot drop boxes, and vote-center selection and setup.

The board approved the agreement after a presentation from county procurement and internal audit staff about the request-for-proposal process, the number of responses, the vendor vetting performed by county information technology, and follow-up questions about a prior data breach involving the recommended firm.

County procurement director Kevin Tine said the county publicly solicited proposals, extended the solicitation window to increase competition and ultimately received seven submissions; five were judged responsive and responsible and were evaluated by an independent panel from the internal audit department. Tine said the solicitation allowed for either single- or multi-vendor awards, and the evaluation committee recommended the single firm as the most advantageous across the six stated scope areas.

Internal audit director Susan Adams described the evaluation process: committee members with audit…