When the Cochise County supervisors sat down to talk about elections in August, they were well aware of what happened the last time the county’s leaders tried to test the limits of state law. And Supervisor Kathleen Gomez said that if she had been in office in 2024, she wouldn’t have certified the county’s election results because of problems that occurred while counting ballots. He pointed to a sentence in state law that says electronic tabulation equipment must be used to count ballots. “It’s really important for people in government, especially county supervisors and people in other elected offices, to really remember that sometimes they are the only line of communication to voters,” Guzman said. The supervisors had attempted to pass that claim on to the insurance pool that represents county governments in the state.