Maricopa County, Arizona, experienced an unfortunate technical issue at various polling places on Election Day, sparking controversy and backlash from candidates and the voting public.
According to Fox News, voters ran into serious problems due to malfunctioning tabulation machines shortly after the polls opened on Election Day, preventing many from having the ability to have their ballots properly registered. Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, during a Wednesday morning news conference, clarified the situation and apologized to the public.
“Apologized yesterday. I will do it again today. What happened yesterday we cannot have a repeat of. We are already looking very closely at what happened. Obviously, our team was able to come up with a fix yesterday for what happened, so that allowed those votes centers to get back online,” Gates said.
Gates confirmed that of the roughly 250,000 in-person votes cast on Election Day, the “lion’s share” of them had been officially counted and reported, but about 17,000 ballots — or 7 percent — that were held in drop boxes had not been counted.
He added, “But again, we are going to do a deep dive on this. This board will get to the bottom of exactly what happened, and we will do what needs to be done.”
Gates also said he expects up to 99 percent of the election results to be made public by Friday, with several dumps of new data being released each night until then.
Maricopa County officials verified through the county’s official Twitter account that the printer issues experienced after the polls opened resulted from special printers having the wrong “settings.”
.@maricopavote has identified the solution for the tabulation issues at about 60 Vote Centers. County technicians have changed the printer settings, which seems to have resolved this issue. It appears some of the printers were not producing dark enough timing marks on ballots. 1/2
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 8, 2022
Gates, on Tuesday, held a news conference to update the public on the developing tabulation machine situation.
Chairman @billgatesaz shared information about the printer issue, and the resolution now being deployed to the remaining affected locations: pic.twitter.com/xTPR6vBZTn
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 8, 2022
Given the aftermath of the results of the 2020 election, the Maricopa County technical glitches sparked a new wave of skepticism among voters and candidates. Gates responded to those claims briefly during his Wednesday update.
“With regard to ‘criminal’ or ‘rigged,’ there is absolutely no basis for that statement,” Gates said.
Shortly after the first reports of potential issues were made known, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake talked to nearby reporters and used the airtime to encourage discouraged Arizona voters to hang in there, and stay in line.
I spoke to the press about the latest Arizona election debacle after voting today in downtown Phoenix.
Watch and do me a favor.
Be patient. Stay in line.
Vote. pic.twitter.com/2tpG0s0fYL
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 8, 2022
Lake’s team also used her social media accounts to spread information regarding nearby polling places with shorter lines.
According to Fox News, Lake’s campaign, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters’ campaign, and the Republican National Committee filed suit in an effort to keep the polls open longer than normal due to the “hiccups” on Tuesday morning. In the lawsuit, the RNC estimated that the issues affected “at least 36 percent of all voting centers.”
It was later reported by Axios that a Maricopa County judge denied the request to extend polling hours.
Story cited here.
