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Arizona Republican lawmakers are again proposing to require security features on the state’s ballot paper, but Democratic skeptics are responding by pointing to a potential conflict of interest involving the proposal’s leading advocate.
State Sen. Mark Finchem’s bill, SB1123, would require the state to use ballot paper with specific security features — such as a hologram, barcode and watermark — that he says would ensure only “legitimate” ballots are cast in the state’s elections.
Finchem, a Republican, attempted to get the requirements into law a few years ago, and they were written into the rules for a pilot program that the state approved funding for in 2022. But that pilot program was scrapped, amid concerns about the potential conflicts involved.
A Votebeat investigation published after the state approved the pilot found that the requirements were written in such a way that there appeared to be only one qualified vendor: Authentix, a company that had ties to Finchem through a nonprofit group he once ran.
The requirements were written by Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, a friend of Finchem’s and the only official who applied to run the pilot program for the state. After the Votebeat report was published in August 2023, the Cochise County supervisors voted to scrap a proposed contract with Authentix.
Finchem’s new bill lists 10 specific security features — the same ones as in the requirements Stevens developed, except for a few wording changes — and would require Arizona ballots to use at least three of them.
The bill’s detailed description of the products closely matches what Authentix, an international anticounterfeiting-technology company, has advertised that it could provide. But the list includes many features that aren’t used in the U.S., and may not even be suited for U.S. elections. “Secure holographic foil,” for example, may be reflective, which could make ballots unreadable by ballot tabulators.
Runbeck Election Services, a ballot vendor based in Phoenix, told Votebeat it provides features similar to four of the 10 features listed in the bill.
When Finchem explained his bill on Jan. 29 to the Committee on Judiciary and Elections, Democratic state Sen. Lauren Kuby, cited the Votebeat article — quoting it directly in the hearing room — and asked Finchem whether his proposal represented a conflict of interest, because an Authentix co-founder had been listed as a team member of his energy nonprofit.
“Authentix has ties to you, correct, and it might be the only vendor that can supply this paper?” she said.
Finchem responded by calling the claim a “red herring.”
“While I know the people that may have been involved in that, there is no financial interest,” he said. “It’s merely a business acquaintance.”
Finchem also told Kuby and the committee that other companies besides Authentix could meet the requirements of his bill. He did not return a phone call from Votebeat asking which companies could, or comment further on the potential conflict.
Unlike the proposed pilot program, Finchem’s bill calls for requiring only three of the 10 features listed in the bill, so it’s possible that Runbeck’s offerings could also meet the requirements.
The committee voted along party lines to move the bill forward. But even if it passes the Republican-led Legislature, it’s unlikely that Gov. Katie Hobbs will sign it unless some Democratic lawmakers sign on.
Finchem has long claimed without evidence that fake ballots were inserted into the 2020 election. His claims ignore the fact that Arizona counties have multiple checks and balances to ensure that doesn’t happen. That includes 24/7 camera surveillance, with livestreams, of areas where ballots are handled, along with bipartisan teams of workers, and auditing protocols, such as those that reconcile the number of ballots cast with the number of voters who participated.
After Cochise County rejected the Authentix pilot, Runbeck helped the county test the security features it could offer, including invisible fibers, a watermark, an infrared taggant, and UV dead paper. The county’s tabulation machines were able to properly tabulate ballot paper with these features, Stevens, the county recorder, wrote in a Feb. 3 report on the test. The additional cost to include these features, he wrote, would be between 10 and 15 cents a ballot.
By comparison, Authentix had estimated that incorporating all of its features would cost $2.75 a ballot. With about 4 million ballots cast in the state, that would be a $10 million cost increase just for the ballots, Kuby, the Democratic senator, said.
She said if the proposal was just for something like requiring a watermark, like California has on its ballots, and it was cost-effective and followed best practices, she may consider supporting it. But, she said, “as constituted now, there are lots of red flags in the proposed bill.”
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.
