Arizona’s Yavapai and Gila counties are not halting election certification
CLAIM: Yavapai and Gila counties in Arizona are delaying the certification of their midterm election results.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Gila County certified its results on Nov. 18, while Yavapai County plans to do so on Nov. 28, county officials tell The Associated Press. Two other Arizona counties delayed certifying their election results.
THE FACTS: With two Arizona counties, Cochise and Mohave, both Republican-controlled, delaying the certification of the midterm election results, social media users have spread baseless claims that Gila and Yavapai counties have done the same. The claims spread on multiple platforms, including Facebook and Truth Social.
“Meanwhile in Arizona…..Gila and Yavapai counties joining with Cochise - not certifying. Two additional counties considering the same,” Lara Logan, a former Fox Nation host, wrote in a tweet on Sunday that was shared over 7,000 times.
Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican who backed a partisan review of 2020 ballots in Maricopa County, also shared Logan’s tweet Sunday, writing, “Gila and Yavapai are two counties I still represent. Oh yeah. #ruralAZ knows. #ruralAZ ROCKS!”
In a separate tweet on Monday, Logan clarified that Gila County had certified its results “last Friday,” quoting Rogers. Rogers retweeted the clarification, though neither deleted their original inaccurate posts, and neither corrected the false claim about Yavapai County.
The Gila County Board of Supervisors canvassed its election results on Nov. 18, according to county documents and officials.
“The canvass was done last Friday,” said Melissa Henderson, chief deputy clerk of the Gila County Board of Supervisors. “It was planned on the 16th and we needed a couple more days so we pushed it to the 18th.”
The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors had set Monday, Nov. 28, as the day to certify election results and it will adhere to that plan, said Jayme Rush, deputy clerk of the board. Nov. 28 is the legal deadline for Arizona counties to certify their election results.
“The board will be meeting on Monday the 28th to canvass the results of the election,” she said. “It was always slated for the 28th and will proceed on the 28th.”
Logan and Sen. Rogers did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.
The split vote by the board of supervisors in Mohave County to delay the canvass came with an explicit vow to certify the election on the Nov. 28 deadline, the AP reported. Members called it a political statement to show how upset they were with the voting issues in Maricopa County.
Mohave became the second Arizona county to delay certification, following Cochise. The board there made its decision Friday without a promise to certify the results by the deadline, despite setting a meeting to consider it. The delay came after the board heard from a trio of conspiracy theorists who alleged that counting machines were not certified. The state’s elections director testified that the machines were certified, the AP reported.
The all-Republican boards of two other counties, Pinal and La Paz, voted with little fanfare Monday to certify their election results.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.