In Cochise County, Arizona, giant rolls of supposedly fraud-proof paper are taking up space in a warehouse. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan explains how conspiracy theories led to spending $200,000 on ballot paper the county can't use.
'$200K gone to waste' as Arizona county buys unusable 'fraud-proof' ballot paper: CNN
Tall tales about China influencing the 2020 presidential election with nefarious bamboo-filled ballots were ridiculed by most elections experts -- but not by Cochise County Recorder David Stevens.CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reported on Friday that Stevens has invested $200,000 in purported...
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'$200K gone to waste' as Arizona county buys unusable 'fraud-proof' ballot paper: CNN
Brad Reed
March 15, 2024 9:47AM ET
A poll worker places vote-by-mail ballots into a ballot box at the Miami-Dade Election Department headquarters on October 14, 2020 (AFP)
Tall tales about China influencing the 2020 presidential election with nefarious bamboo-filled ballots were ridiculed by most elections experts -- but not by Cochise County Recorder David Stevens.
CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reported on Friday that Stevens has invested $200,000 in purported "fraud-proof" paper to use for ballots in elections, only to see the returns on that investment go up in smoke.
In an interview with O'Sullivan, Stevens defended his decision to buy the special ballot paper due to unverified "concerns" he'd heard from assorted voters in the county.
"There were concerns... that people were making their own ballots and then interjecting them into the system, they were coming from foreign countries" he told O'Sullivan. "Maybe we can make our paper more secure, so we would know quicker or easier if it really is a valid Arizona ballot or if it is not."
Stevens did not explicitly endorse the wild claims about Chinese bamboo ballots but he also didn't dismiss them when asked about them by O'Sullivan.
O'Sullivan then went on to document how "a missed deadline and other bureaucratic snafus" derailed efforts to get the special paper used in 2024 election ballots, which led him to say to Stevens that the effort was "essentially $200,000 gone to waste."
"Uh, a little less than [$200,000], but yeah," Stevens acknowledged.
"So this sounds like a bit of a nightmare," O'Sullivan said.
"I... pretty much, yeah," Stevens replied. "I want it to be over."
Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told O'Sullivan that concerns about bamboo ballots never should have factored into any purchasing decision made by Stevens or any other elections official.
"The economic costs of the conspiracy theories in Arizona are real dollars," he said. "Now the paper that was purchased by this one county based on these conspiracy theories that is absolutely useless... this is taxpayer dollars down the drain based on lies."
