KINGMAN – He believes keeping votes safe, secure and honest is key to his county success. Allen Tempert loves his job and is proud of the results his department achieves as the Mohave County Elections Director. He grew up in and spent his early adult years in Pittsburgh, PA, achieving two degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University, before earning his Masters Degree in Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Before he headed west, Tempert held the position of Director of Elections and Chief Registrar for Beaver County Pennsylvania for 5 years. It was time well spent because he knew he had found his calling and a career in public service. However, after years living in Pittsburgh, he felt it was time to take his prized career and expand it and his life into a completely different environment.
It was August, 2002 when Tempert accepted an offer to become the Mohave County Elections Director. It’s been almost 21 years now and he hasn’t regretted the move in any way, receiving repeated kudos for his integrity and devotion in keeping county elections secure. He has been forthcoming in his public comments over the years regarding each election and feels comfortable in relying on his employees and the hardware involved in delivering election results in a timely and upstanding manner. Tempert utilizes high speed voting tabulation machines in his department, the two of them are affectionately called Liberty and Freedom and cost roughly $112,000 apiece. Each machine will tabulate about 300 ballots a minute.
The most often asked question of Tempert is what brought him all the way from Pennsylvania to the Southwest. He always answers that from the moment that he entered the career of elections administration, a career that he thoroughly enjoys, he knew that he had found his life’s calling. He says that since he spent his entire life in Southwest Pennsylvania that it was time to take a career that he loves and perform it in completely different environment allowing him the chance to explore other parts of this great country. He enjoys both the governmental structural challenge as well as the change in the physical environment.
Tempert and his employees (four of them) always try to think ahead, especially as an election nears and they consistently work to prevent any potential problems. Up to 20 people are also hired temporarily when elections take place in the days beforehand and afterwards, not counting the hundreds of volunteers at polling places. Tempert and his workers have an extremely long day and night on primary and general election days when even a minor mistake can cause concerns and need to be rectified immediately.
Tempert says elections are administered by following state laws and state procedures which “Mohave County follows to the tee.” He adds that the county’s Elections Department tracks and documents the path of every ballot it receives for tabulation whether it’s a ballot voted by mail, at an early voting site or at the voting polls on Election Day, while at all times keeping the secrecy of each voter’s decision secure. Tempert also points out that “all steps of ballot processing are subject to observation by members of established political parties. In addition, ballot tabulation can be viewed live by the public anytime during the ballot tabulation process via a live stream accessible from the Mohave County Elections Department website.” Tempert loves being in Kingman with his wife Mary Pat and their two sons, Alex and Zackary, saying that it was the smartest thing that he ever did. He finalizes his job by saying “it’s the coolest job on the face of the Earth. I get to help people in our political process. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
