Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chairman Bill Gates (Image Source: KTVK video screenshot)
© 2024 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Arizona election officials report issues with vote-counting machines at 20% of polling locations in Maricopa County
November 08, 2022
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chairman Bill Gates reported on Tuesday morning that approximately 20% of the voting centers in Arizona's largest county are experiencing issues with vote-counting tabulators.
"About 20% of the locations out there where there's an issue with the tabulator where some of the ballots that after people have voted them, they try and run them through the tabulator and they're not going through," Gates stated.
\u201c#BREAKING Chairman @maricopacounty Board of Supervisors @billgatesaz says 20% voting centers are having issues w/tabulators. He says the ballot can still be dropped in the box, it will just get centrally tabulated tonight. He says they\u2019re working to fix the issue. #Election2022\u201d— Ali Bradley (@Ali Bradley) 1667925045
Gates stated that if the tabulator does not accept a ballot, voters can place their ballots inside a "secure box," and they will be manually counted in the evening at a central counting location. A majority of Arizona counties tabulate ballots this way, Gates added.
"This will function much like early voting functions, in that we would get your ballot back, once we've signature-verified it, we would send it to our central tabulators," Gates said. "Ballots that are [at the central location] will already be signature-verified, so we won't need to confirm identity but we will central-tabulate them."
Voters across the county took to social media to report tabulator malfunctions at multiple Maricopa County locations. Residents captured videos of election workers announcing issues with the vote-counting machines.
"We have two tabulators. One of the tabulators is not working," an election worker at one Maricopa voting center explained to voters waiting in line to cast their ballots. "The other tabulator is taking about 75% successful. So, 25% of them are being misread. And it could be a printer issue, or it could be the tabulator itself. So, when it's misread, you have an option to put it into what's called box three, and it gets read. Whether it goes downtown and gets read manually or whether it gets refed into our tabulator."
\u201cBREAKING: Reports out of Maricopa county of Machines \u201cnot working\u201d and ballots being \u201cmisread\u201d\n\nWHAT IS GOING ON?\n\u201d— Benny Johnson (@Benny Johnson) 1667917997
Another video shared on social media captured an election worker explaining how ballots placed into box three will be counted.
"Tonight, a Republican and a Democrat will sit and go through all of the misread ballots all over the county and count them," the election worker explained. She added that none of the tabulators at the voting location were working correctly.
"Nothing's working for the last half hour," she noted.
\u201cPoll worker in Maricopa County confirms "nothing's working" for the last half hour. Explains misread ballots will get counted downtown tonight.\u201d— Charlie Kirk (@Charlie Kirk) 1667925913
According to the elections department, as of Tuesday, there were 2,463,264 active voters in Maricopa County. As of 11 a.m. ET, roughly 44,000 voters had cast their ballots in person.
Katie Hobbs (D), Arizona's current secretary of state and a gubernatorial candidate, refused calls to recuse herself from overseeing the midterm elections.
The tabulator issues in Maricopa County are expected to delay the announcement of the results in the critical gubernatorial race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake and the Senate race between Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters.
\u201cScottsdale Arizona: 11735 N SCOTTSDALE RD\u2026 Machines are down all over the place.. Many COULDN\u2019T even get their votes counted.. \n\nThis is happening all just Maricopa county not just at this location.. Why is this happening @stephen_richer @katiehobbs ??\u201d— DoBetterAZ.com (@DoBetterAZ.com) 1667929271
Want to leave a tip?
We answer to you. Help keep our content free of advertisers and big tech censorship by leaving a tip today.
Want to join the conversation?
Already a subscriber?
Candace Hathaway is a staff writer for Blaze News.
candace_phx
more stories
Sign up for the Blaze newsletter
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content that may sometimes include advertisements. You may opt out at any time.
© 2024 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Get the stories that matter most delivered directly to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content that may sometimes include advertisements. You may opt out at any time.