An Arizona election official who resigned from her former position in Cochise County over her refusal to hand count ballots in the 2022 elections is now the statewide election director after a promotion from Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
Lisa Marra was appointed by Fontes to become the Arizona Elections Director and will oversee equipment testing, candidate filings, election night reporting and canvassing during the 2024 elections.
Marra previously resigned from her post in Cochise County after the other two Board of Elections members sought to hand count the county’s votes in 2022. She eventually received a $130,000 settlement from the county to compensate for her departure.
Prior to the 2022 elections, residents of Cochise County reported concerns that Marra was screening the political views of poll workers in a potential quest to achieve ideological uniformity and compliance among staff responsible for conducting the county’s elections.
Marra also repeatedly criticized election integrity efforts using her personal social media account, characterizing the Arizona Senate audit of the state’s 2020 election results as conspiratorial and those who question whether election-changing voter or ballot fraud can occur in the United States are conspiracy theorists.
In 2020, Marra wrote an opinion piece for The Arizona Republic in which she called for all elections to be conducted completely by mail. She wrote the essay in response to an op-ed by a Republican lawmaker.
Marra resigned from her posts amid claims she received death threats due to her refusal to authorize a hand count of ballots in Cochise County, however, media reporting later revealed she was not the target of the threat.
While Marra has received a $130,000 settlement, a new job for the State of Arizona, and now a promotion from Fontes, the other two members of the Cochise County Board of Elections, who disagreed with Marra, are facing criminal charges.
Cochise County Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, both Republicans, were indicted in November after Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes convinced a grand jury to levy felony charges against them.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Lisa Marra” by Election Official Legal Defense Network. Background Photo “Cochise County Courthouse” by John Stanton. CC BY-SA 3.0.
