Cochise County pauses election canvass; staff warns jail district must certify before supervisors

Cochise County elections staff halted action on a scheduled canvass at a Nov. 12 special meeting after identifying a statutory requirement that the jail district board of directors, not the Board of Supervisors, perform the initial canvass.

"Prior to coming in today, we discovered, we were taking a review of statute, and statute 16 dash 6 4 2 states that the governing body holding an election shall meet and canvass the election as follows," Sharon Gohman, elections staff, told the Board of Supervisors. Gohman said she consulted with Dylan Hendel in the county attorney's office and "we agreed that it would be best for the board to postpone, or rather reschedule this canvassing until tomorrow at say 02:00 in order to meet those statutory requirements."

Chairman Antinori reiterated the plan: "We're gonna meet it too as a jail district. The jail district will canvas, and then we will send the report to the board of supervisors," and said the Board would convene afterward, around 2:30 p.m., to accept the jail district's certification.

Board members asked about other contests on the ballot, including two school-district override items. Gohman answered that "the chairman of the board and the school superintendent can canvas those elections," and that the elections department had an intergovernmental agreement to manage those contests.

No formal motion was taken at the Nov. 12 special meeting. Gohman advised that a motion was unnecessary to adjourn; the chair said the canvass would be reposted for 2:00 p.m. the next day and the Board of Supervisors would meet thereafter to accept certification. The chair then adjourned the special meeting.

The next Cochise County meetings announced on Nov. 12 were a 9:00 a.m. work session the following morning and the reposted 2:00 p.m. jail district canvass followed by the supervisors' certification meeting.