{"id":249040,"date":"2026-05-18T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/yuma-county-votes-to-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T01:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:40:18","slug":"yuma-county-votes-to-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/yuma-county-votes-to-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuma County votes to add ballot drop box cameras, drawing privacy concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/05\/19\/yuma-county-votes-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/\">Yuma County votes to add ballot drop box cameras, drawing privacy concerns<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/05\/19\/yuma-county-votes-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/\">https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/05\/19\/yuma-county-votes-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-18 21:28:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.azfamily.com\">www.azfamily.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">YUMA, AZ (AZFamily) \u2014 A move by Yuma County leaders aimed at increasing election security is facing pushback from some voters who say the plan raises new privacy questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">During a meeting this morning, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors voted to approve adding security cameras to ballot drop boxes used for early voting. County officials say the cameras are intended to help ensure ballots are not tampered with.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"header | article-header w-100\">What\u2019s changing<\/h2>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The cameras are expected to be placed outside public libraries where voters can drop off early ballots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">County Recorder David Lara said concerns about activity around drop boxes during last year\u2019s election helped drive the decision to add cameras ahead of both the primary and general elections.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"header | article-header w-100\">Why some voters are concerned<\/h2>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Public comment and letters read during the meeting highlighted two main issues:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list | article-list\">\n<li><span>Some voters said they do not want cameras near their ballots.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Others objected to cameras being installed at public libraries, which are used by residents for many purposes beyond voting.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Several residents questioned who would have access to video footage and how long it would be stored.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One former teacher also raised broader concerns about the role of video surveillance in elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI taught thousands of students using the approved Arizona curriculum about the election process at the local state and federal level at no time was video equipment included in our discussion, as it didn\u2019t exist for obvious reasons,\u201d the teacher said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Lara said the cameras are meant to monitor the ballot drop boxes \u2014 not voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTo set them up in the libraries, I have to have my camera system in each drop box it is not to video the people to come out of the library&#8230; cars it is only to zoom in on the box itself for the security of the election transparency,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">County leaders said the library director will have access to the camera feed to monitor what\u2019s happening at the locations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">They also emphasized that the video cannot be shared on social&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/05\/19\/yuma-county-votes-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yuma County votes to add ballot drop box cameras, drawing privacy concerns https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/05\/19\/yuma-county-votes-add-ballot-drop-box-cameras-drawing-privacy-concerns\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/gray-kpho-prod.gtv-cdn.com\/resizer\/v2\/SBJ7KT6HIFHSVHWMEYVQZ5WVRM.png?auth=7e77854f60e90b404bd0a6e39fc84e01b6354f1770ff396e1d5907f026dab2fb&width=1200&height=600&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249043,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249040\/revisions\/249043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}