Phoenix company handling majority of mail-in ballots opens their doors

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — With so much scrutiny on our elections, what used to be a mundane part, mail-in voting, is getting a lot more attention. As a result, Runbeck Election Services, a Phoenix elections technology company that helps most counties in Arizona, is opening its doors.

They held their first-ever media day Wednesday. Runbeck said it helps nine different counties in our state, 96% of all registered voters. Their focus is on printing and mailing balls.

Counties lay out the ballots, and those PDFs are sent to Runbeck. They said counties determine how many ballots they need and who to send them to. “All the ballots go through here; both sides are printed at the same time,” said Jeff Ellington, Runbeck’s CEO. He showed us around the massive facility. “Prior to 20, nobody really cared how this stuff happened,” he said.

Ellington said since 2020, he’s done more than 250 interviews. He wants more people to understand how the process works. “Everything is tracked throughout the facility, all of it, which voter got which ballot style is tracked, on the sorter we take a picture of the finished product as well as the thickness,” he said. That way, they can ensure there’s only one ballot in an envelope.

Arizona’s family also asked about security. “We’ve addressed everything from physical security, we have armed guards on premise now, which we didn’t prior to 2020. We’ve got cameras inside and outside the facility watching everything that goes on. From a cyber perspective we’ve got no only our own internal team watching all our network activity but an external team,” Ellington said.

Arizona’s family also asked about his message to those who don’t have faith in the process. “It’s really listening to the people you know, listening to the elections officials,” he responded.

Their work is well underway; ballots for those overseas and in the military have already shipped. The last day to request a ballot by mail is October 28th.

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