Problems plague Pinal County primary; hundreds likely kept from voting

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Problems plague Pinal County primary; hundreds likely kept from voting

March 11, 2023

Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this article had an incorrect number of electoral districts affected by ballot shortages.

It’s impossible to know how many people failed to vote in the Pinal County primary after polling places ran out of ballots and at least one polling place wasn’t open for hours.

Amid calls to annull the results from one candidate and angry questions from others, county officials admitted Wednesday they failed the primary — again.

Officials pledged to immediately reorganize the county’s elections office to avoid repeating the same mistakes when early voting for the November elections takes place about three weeks later.

And on Thursday, officials fired elections official David Frisk after serving just three months to restore public confidence.

“This county made a mistake,” County Attorney Kent Volkmer said at a press conference in Florence. “All county officials are baffled as to what happened.”

Election coverage: Arizona-Wide Live Updates | Arizona Election Results

Pinal is a prime figure in Arizona’s Election Day problems, as only minor problems were reported statewide, such as ballot shortages in one constituency in Pima County and smeared ink on ballots in Maricopa County. became.

Volkmer said up to 750 people were affected by the delay in Pinal County, but he was unable to estimate how many people left the polling place without voting.

About 25% of the county’s 95 precincts report missing or missing ballots and need help.

The shortage comes on the heels of an error last month that caused Pinal County to send nearly 63,000 incorrect ballots to voters, prompting officials to scramble to come up with a legal solution ahead of the primary election. increase.

They settled on a plan to allow affected voters to augment their original ballots with supplemental ballots that they could cast in person or by mail. The wrong vote only affected local elections.

more:A county-issued pen smeared some ballots, but we won’t know the details for a while

Issues could affect local elections

With few votes cast in some municipal elections in the county, officials could not promise the results would not be affected by the lack of votes.

Officials blamed the shortage on human error.

“Frankly, we underestimated…we didn’t order enough ballots,” said Volkmer. “More people showed up than we thought.”

A contributing factor was the unexpected number of independent voters who came in person to the polls Tuesday to demand Republican votes. That’s it.

Volkmer said the county’s response was also hampered by its inability to print new ballots quickly. said I had to.

Frisk, who began working in the county in March and was formally appointed in May, did not attend the press conference.

Frisk could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

“Mr. Virginia Ross resigned from her elected office and was immediately appointed as elections administrator,” the county said in a statement.

Pinal County Oversight Board Chairman Jeffrey McClure said election experts are being sought to review election procedures and operations.

“We are looking at restructuring the way the election department works,” he said, adding that the mistake was not intentional. I’ve seen mistakes.”

Candidates, voters outraged

Voters and candidates who attended a press conference at the Pinal County Superior Court in Florence demanded accountability.

“What happened is unacceptable,” said Apache Junction city council candidate and Mesa Police Department Lieutenant Inspector Brian Soller.

Holly Klingensmith, a pollster at Apache Junction’s Moose Lodge, left the courthouse shaking his head and whispering, “Lies, lies, lies.”

She said workers at the lodge’s polling stations came to a point where they only had 25 votes left, and when the extras were delivered, they only received 50 more.

She said she expected a shortage and asked, “Why couldn’t you?”

Senator Kerry Townsend of R-Apache Junction, who lost the reelection race, said he wanted to make sure the county handled the vote properly and called for transparency.

However, Townsend took to Twitter to call for a redo of the county elections.

“Apparently afternoon voters were disenfranchised because voters were turned down by 1pm and ballots weren’t brought in until late at night,” she said in the post. I am calling on the people to void the election and repeat it.”

Townsend said he is prepared to file an injunction to stop certification if the supervisor fails to act.

“I’m not doing this for my race, I’m doing it for a municipal or local race that was irreparably flawed,” she wrote in another post. Stated.

Volkmer said county supervisors cannot void elections without court intervention. Even if it could, the county does not certify local elections, he said. Only cities do.

Some voters were told to come back later

Anyone in line at the polling place by 7 p.m. had a chance to vote, Mr Volkmer said. However, he acknowledged that some voters were rejected for lack of ballots and asked to return. He didn’t know if any of them were.

A voting rights group on Tuesday filed an emergency lawsuit in Pinal County Superior Court, calling Pinal County’s refusal to keep the polls open longer to offset the undemocratic shutdown.

The Arizona Democracy Resource Center focused on the Hidden Valley district, according to the complaint, which said the opening of polling places was delayed by four hours.

“Voters who attempt to vote before working, assuming child care obligations, and before meeting other demands encountered by the public have been denied the right to vote,” the organization said in a statement. .

Ink smears, stolen pens, missing ballots:scattered dot election day

The court dismissed this claim and ruled that the county did not need to keep the poll public for later.

“The reduction of voting hours in Pinal County constituencies by four hours is not only an inconvenience, it is also a violation of the most basic tenets of democracy. It was just one of many problems.”

County officials counted the ballots overnight and by 1:30 p.m. Wednesday there were about 8,000 pending votes, officials said.

Volkmer has assured the public that the county is ready for November. How will the county regain public trust?

“Look at us,” he said. “Judge us by what we do, not by what I say here.”

Pima and Maricopa Voting Problems

Pima County was not affected by the ballot shortages that plagued Pinal County, but on a much smaller scale.

County public affairs director Mark Evans said one vote center ran out of ballots and several people had to wait about an hour to cast their ballots.

He blamed the situation on a global paper shortage and said election officials had underestimated the number of ballots needed at some polling stations.

He said turnout in the county was low, with about 30,000 people voting on Tuesday, with an average of 232 voters at each of the 129 vote centers.

Some voters were late because their provisional ballot envelopes were lost. Evans said he had many provisional ballots on hand, but election officials forgot to deliver envelopes to them.

By 8:30 am, he said, the envelope had been delivered.

Evans explained the delay as a road collision. But controversy arose when pollsters told voters that Matt Salmon was dropped from the gubernatorial race, even though Salmon’s name was still on the ballot.

The conversation was reported by conservative radio host Garret Lewis of Tucson’s KNST, who took to Twitter to explain what happened and called it a “campaign.”

Polling officials are prohibited from discussing candidates with voters. Mr Lewis said on Twitter that pollsters were deliberately trying to keep votes away from Lake Kari.

“It was the only one that got a lot of attention here,” Evans said.

Maricopa County officials, meanwhile, have faced problems with government-issued pens smearing ballots with ink.

Officials on Wednesday acknowledged that the smears had occurred in limited cases, but could not provide details about how many times or where they occurred. I was the first to report the problem.

Officials said no ballots were lost and no one was prevented from voting.

Multiple polling station officials, including polling place judges and inspectors, reported ink smears on their ballots. They said some votes need to be run multiple times to get the tallying machine to process the votes.

The report comes hours after the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office ordered the Republican candidate to stop telling his social media followers to replace the county’s pen with his own.

Gail Gorek, who lost her bid for a seat on the Maricopa County Supervisory Board on Tuesday, told followers that ink from the county’s pens was unreliable. was reported.