Across the nation, local officials worried about election fraud have started taking matters into their own hands, leading to protests and investigations.

Many officials have chosen to delay or reject certifying election results since former President Donald Trump falsely accused voter fraud for his 2020 defeat. In Nevada, a commissioner from a pivotal swing county claimed she discovered facts that needed “further investigation.” Similarly, a commissioner in Mohave County, Arizona, who voted to postpone certification, stated it was an expression of support for other counties also delaying their results. In Michigan, two members of a county board in the Upper Peninsula express skepticism about three recall elections having nearly identical margins.

In Colorado, an official compromised her county’s voting machines, while in Ohio, another official faced scrutiny for a possible security breach.

Additionally, some counties are opting to swap electronic ballot counting for manual hand counts, a method that research indicates is often less accurate and takes longer than machine counting.

Several of these counties are located in critical swing states or in Democratic strongholds where Vice President Kamala Harris needs electoral votes to secure a victory.

Counties’ Crucial Role

In the majority of states, counties oversee the election processes. Organizations such as county commissions, boards of elections, or dedicated boards select the primary election official in the area, address essential administrative concerns, and officially authenticate election outcomes.

Counties have faced lawsuits from states, and grand juries have indicted officials when election results aren’t certified. Typically, these officials comply with legal requirements or quickly change their votes. However, the ongoing disputes about county authority could still lead to disorder and mistrust in the electoral process.

“There are numerous aspects where individuals could choose not to adhere to the established rules,” remarks Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles and operator of ElectionLawBlog.org.

Below, we examine three counties in swing states that have stirred controversy regarding elections, along with their potential impact on the presidential race.

Spalding County, Georgia

In this rural area situated about an hour south of Atlanta, Donald Trump secured roughly 60% of the vote in 2020.

On October 8, three Republican appointees from the five-member Board of Elections — Ben Johnson, Roy McClain, and James Newland — voted to conduct a hand-count audit of the ballots from one federal and one local race. They plan to randomly select which elections to hand count to verify the results against the machine counts.

The movement towards hand counting is being driven by election integrity proponents on the right, who are responding to widely discredited theories alleging that voting machines were manipulated during the 2020 election, including debunked allegations that Dominion Voting Systems used algorithms to switch votes from Trump to Biden.

Election specialists recommend using machine counting, which employs scanners similar to those used for standardized tests, due to its cost-effectiveness and efficiency. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice noted in July that “hand counts can carry error rates up to 50 times greater than those of vote-counting machines,” and added that hand counting is only practical in jurisdictions with fewer than 1,000 voters.

During the 2020 election, the Spalding County Election Board favored Democrats with a 3-2 majority. However, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, alongside the local Republican state house members, criticized the county’s election supervisor for problems encountered in initiating voting systems on Election Day, which forced many voters to utilize provisional ballots processed differently from standard ones.

In response, the Republican-dominated state legislature enacted a law in 2021 revising how certain board members are appointed in Spalding County and setting new qualifications for the county election supervisor, resulting in a Republican majority on the board and the firing of the previous election supervisor.

In 2022, election staff discovered a fraudulent ballot integrated into a counting machine, as reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The Secretary of State’s office indicated to the paper that the ballot “might have been created to erroneously add a vote for some candidates or was an effort to cast doubt on the integrity of election systems statewide.”

Chairman Ben Johnson, who described the 2020 presidential election as “highly questionable,” has shared Instagram posts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, denouncing “high-profile pedophiles,” referencing a satanic cult, and posting a photoshopped image of the so-called QAnon shaman.

Attempts to contact Johnson and McClain yielded no responses. A person who answered Newland’s number immediately hung up. YSL News did not get replies to emails sent to the entire board, to election supervisor Kimberly Slaughter, or to a general email for the election office. YSL News also left a voicemail for the county manager.

“We’ve put in significant effort over the past two years to foster a cooperative approach to avoid making Spalding County a hotbed of electoral controversies, yet somehow it continues to be a focal point for such disputes,”

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“We are at the center of election disputes,” commented Dexter Wimbish, a Democrat serving on the board of elections.

Wimbish expressed concern that if a significant discrepancy arises between the hand count and the machine count, the board members might decide to count all races by hand and eliminate voting machines entirely. He stated he is “very much worried” that the board’s thorough examination of the election results could lead to an investigation, which if not completed promptly, may result in a decision to not certify the election.

“This situation could potentially lead to legal disputes surrounding the presidential election if their favored candidate does not win,” he added. “It seems clear that this is their intention.”

Fulton County, Pennsylvania

This small rural county of 15,000 in south-central Pennsylvania, located on the Maryland border, has been labeled “Trump Country” by Reuters due to its strong support for the former president.

The county commissioners, who also act as the Board of Elections, have been involved in a legal dispute with the secretary of state’s office for years. They faced allegations of hiring a technology firm in December 2020 to gain unauthorized access to their Dominion voting machines for an election audit.

The secretary of state’s office decertified the machines after confirming that the firm had photographed essential parts of the devices, making them unsuitable for future elections. Fulton County responded by suing the state, contesting the secretary’s authority to decertify the equipment.

Fulton County was determined to assess the machines, attempting to involve a second inspection company, as indicated in court records. This led to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court intervening to prevent the second company from proceeding with its inspection.

“Months later, without notifying the public or the courts about this ongoing litigation, Fulton County engaged a third company to examine the machines,” noted the court. The secretary of state’s office requested the court hold the county in contempt and impose penalties.

In 2023, the judge determined: “Fulton County and its various legal representatives have engaged in a consistent pattern of delaying tactics, stubbornness, and harassment, displaying bad faith throughout these legal proceedings.”

Randy Bunch, one of two commissioners who initiated the lawsuit against the secretary of state’s office, was re-elected in 2023 and currently serves as the chairman of the three-person board. He did not respond to inquiries from YSL News, nor did fellow commissioners Steven Wible and Hervey Hann, who also won elections in 2023.

“The department will not hesitate to take action against any of the 67 counties if they act in ways that jeopardize the safety and security of the votes cast by citizens this November,” stated Pennsylvania Department of State Press Secretary Matt Heckel in an email. He described the county’s actions regarding voting systems as “reckless.”

Bunch, Wible, and Hann are tasked with certifying the county’s results for the presidential election.

Cochise County, Arizona

This Republican-dominated county, located in the southeastern region of Arizona, has a governing board that consists of a 2-1 Republican majority. Since 2020, it has had disagreements with Democratic state officials concerning election management.

Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, two Republicans on the Board of Supervisors, are facing indictment for conspiracy and tampering with an election officer after failing to certify the November 8, 2022 election results before the state’s deadline.

Crosby and Judd both supported additional hand counting of ballots beyond the small sample required by the state prior to certifying the results. A court later mandated the board to certify the results, and while Judd and Democrat Ann English voted in favor, Crosby did not participate in the vote. The case was reported to a grand jury by Democratic state Attorney General Kris Mayes, and the trial is scheduled to begin in January.

Judd chose not to comment for this article. Crosby referred to his previous public comments during meetings. The minutes from a meeting on November 18, 2022, show Crosby stated he had no reason to believe the 2020 election was fraudulent but felt certification should be postponed until more evidence of the machines’ reliability was available.

“While he doesn’t know for sure, he suspects that voting machines could potentially be hacked,” the minutes indicate.

Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, a Republican responsible for maintaining voter registration records, told YSL News he is open to conducting the hand count for the board. “I’m willing to assist,” he noted, crediting his background in the Army and the Boy Scouts.

Stevens avoided stating whether President Joe Biden was legitimately elected, instead focusing on future elections. He expressed confidence in accepting the results of the upcoming presidential election, saying, “I have no reason to doubt it. But I can’t predict the future.”

English, the Democratic supervisor, mentioned that she doesn’t think her colleagues plan to revisit hand counting, and she remains optimistic that the presidential results will be certified.

“Everyone makes mistakes in life; that’s where lessons are learned. I hope they have learned from this experience,” she remarked.