Voting gets off to a rocky start in Maricopa County before equipment problem solved

In Maricopa County, voters who ventured to the polls immediately hit a snag.

Less than an hour after vote centers opened, reports came flooding in of problems with tabulators at some of the county's voting centers.

Initially, officials estimated that 10% of polling sites were affected. Later, they upped that number to 20%, and, finally, to 30%.

By midday, about 15 of the county's 223 voting locations had wait times exceeding 30 minutes, and officials still didn't have details of what exactly was causing woes with their tabulators, the machines that count voters' ballots.

They announced they'd found and fixed the issue — timing marks on ballots — about 2 p.m., eight hours after polls opened.

It was a busy day at the polls, as many voters opted to cast ballots in person instead of voting early. Elections Director Scott Jarrett said last week he expected 250,000 to 350,000 people to vote in person Tuesday. As of midday 150,000 votes had been recorded.

Lines were reported at multiple vote centers, but wait times generally remained under an hour.

"Lines are normal," Jarrett said.

In Maricopa County, printers at polling sites produce ballots on demand so that voters can vote at any location in the county, rather than being assigned a polling place. The formatting marks on the ballots produced by some printers weren’t being printed dark enough for the tabulators to read, officials said.

Technological support staff spent the afternoon roving the county, hopping from site to site to fix the issues.

"Everyone is still getting to vote," said Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates Tuesday morning. "No one is being disenfranchised and we’ve got redundancies in place."

Nevertheless, the glitch was a blow to elections officials who, after facing intense scrutiny, lawsuits and misinformation in 2020, had for months attempted to reassure nervous voters that elections are safe and secure.

But the reaction from some voters indicated a lingering mistrust of the system.

The news caused a stir on social media, with voters voicing frustration and national media outlets picking up the story.

Josh Erb, who tried to vote at the Mountain Park Health Center Baseline Clinic in south Phoenix, said Tuesday morning he would need to come back to the same site once he got off work.

“They said that we can slide it in the machine, but I don’t want to risk it," Erb said. "If it’s not working, I’m not going to place my vote."

Sandra Tufel went to cast her ballot at the Queen Creek Library at about 7 a.m. and encountered the tabulator issue.

"People weren't happy," she said. “I’m going to have to trust the system and trust my ballot will be counted. It was a frustrating experience."

The issues came after some conservative politicians and personalities spent much of last week urging people to vote in person, rather than early, and predicting issues at the polls.

They latched onto the tabulator problems on Tuesday. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, called on social media for arrests over the issues, even as it was unclear what was causing the problems.

Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, a conservative social media site, that officials were trying to "steal the election."

Besides the issues with tabulators, the county also saw other minor problems. A day after officials sought to tamp down on conspiracies at an election eve news conference, people outside the polls handed out ballpoint pens at a Sun City West voting location. And others were bringing their own pens to other polling stations.

Meanwhile, conservative observers were spotted at a few Maricopa County polling sites.

The Grand Canyon State has become ground zero for election denialism after the 2020 presidential election and a highly publicized hand count review of ballots from Maricopa County.

The Senate Republican-ordered review solidified Joe Biden's win in the county and found no evidence of widespread fraud. Still, Arizona has seen a flurry of activity around elections, including new statutes from the state Legislature, legal battles in the courts and fiery statements from politicians, some of whom have sowed doubt about elections and refused to say whether they will accept the results of this one.

Election Day coverage: Live updates | Arizona election results 

Arizona voters: What to expect on election night with results, race calling

Maricopa County sees tabulator issues

Voters at sites affected by the tabulator problems were given the option of placing their ballot in a secure box to be tabulated later, going to another location to vote, or returning later in the day to the same location in hopes the problem will be fixed.

Voters who decided after checking in at a polling site to go to another location or to return later to vote were told they should inform poll workers so that they could be "checked out." That would ensure they were able to vote a standard ballot later in the day or at a different location.

But not all voters got the memo. Some said they had left polling places without "checking out" and had to vote a provisional ballot as a result.

Provisional ballots are used when there is uncertainty about a person's eligibility to vote and are designed to ensure nobody is excluded from voting because of an administrative error.

When a provisional ballot is cast, it is kept separate from others until after the election. Then, elections staff determine whether the voter actually was eligible to vote and whether the ballot should be counted.

For voters who forgot to check out and received a provisional ballot, Elections Department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson said there was a backup plan.

"The guidance that we've provided to our poll workers is to write down the name of those voters and all of their voter information," she said. "They'll do an incident form inside of the voting location, and those will be researched on the back end."

If election officials are able to verify that the voter didn't cast a ballot at the first location, they'll count the provisional ballot.

There are no marks or codes on a ballot that identify the voter who cast it, but Gilbertson said officials will be able to compare the number of checked-in voters at each site to the number of ballots received at that polling place and compare the names of checked-in voters to the names written down by poll workers at other sites.

Election guide: November 2022

Election results | City races | School boards | State | Governor | Ballot measures | Federal

Races likely won't be decided early

County officials said voters should not expect full results immediately after polls close.

"This is a false narrative, and it is a dangerous narrative," Gates said. "We are going to continue to push back against it."

The first round of results were to come about an hour after polls closed Tuesday, with more to follow throughout the night and in the next few days.

Election results: When will Arizona voters see results in Tuesday's general election?

The first results will come from early ballots dropped off by voters or received by mail before Nov. 5. Subsequent rounds will include results from in-person voters on Election Day and early ballots dropped off in the final days of voting, as well as provisional ballots and early ballots that need signatures cured, a process that involves contacting a voter to check a signature because officials cannot independently verify it.

State law gives officials until Nov. 28 to wrap up counting for this election.

Even then, the election might not be decided. A new state law makes automatic recounts more likely, especially given close races up and down this year's ballot, and could extend election officials' work for weeks.

After primary woes, Pinal County sees smooth Election Day

Pinal County went into Tuesday hoping to redeem itself after a disastrous primary in which one-quarter of the county's polling places ran out of ballots on election day and about 63,000 early ballots were sent to voters with errors related to local races.

Days later, county officials fired Elections Director David Frisk and appointed Virginia Ross, the county's recorder, in his place.

An independent review of the election found that the county's Elections Department was "chronically understaffed" with high turnover and that Frisk broke state statute by not ordering enough ballots. The investigation found no "intentional wrongdoing or misconduct."

Ross said last month that a number of the report's recommendations were already in place in her department. It looks as though those have paid off. The county opened all of its polling locations on time Tuesday morning and county spokesperson James Daniels said voting was going smoothly.

Officials received nine calls within the first few hours of voting on Election Day, compared with hundreds each hour in August. All of Tuesday’s calls were related to general requests for voter information, such as polling locations, Daniels said.

“They are just voter-type questions, which is what the contact center should be for,” he said.

Around midday, one of the county's polling places in Superior lost power, but officials said a generator was en route and that the outage wouldn't impact voting.

Includes information from Arizona Republic reporters Lillian Boyd, Madeleine Parrish, Robert Anglen and Richard Ruelas.

Sasha Hupka covers Maricopa County and regional issues for The Arizona Republic with a focus on voting and democracy. Do you have a tip about elections or questions about voting? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter: @SashaHupka.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Election Day in AZ: Voting gets off to a rocky start in Maricopa County