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County supervisors in Arizona face intense public pressure to reject election results, but most certify anyway
Lydia Abril placed a Bible on the podium, adjusted the microphone, and told the elected officials in front of her that she wanted to pass along a message from God. “Justice? You high and mighty politicians don’t even know the meaning of the word,” Abril read aloud from Psalm 58. The crowd behind her raised […]
Arizona counties will be forced to certify election despite ‘political theater’
Amid a GOP campaign to pressure county supervisors across Arizona not to certify their elections, two counties have postponed their vote until the eleventh hour, raising questions about what happens if they fail to meet their deadline to finalize results. There’s a simple answer, according to election attorneys in the state: If counties do not […]
146 Arizona voters’ ballots remain in limbo after Election Day printer problems
After widespread printer problems in Maricopa County on Election Day, the ballots of 146 county voters are in limbo, and potentially will not be counted. The 146 ballots are from voters who checked in at an initial vote center and received a ballot but left — potentially without casting that ballot — without being checked […]
Cochise County supervisors sue elections director to get access to ballots for hand count
Two Republican supervisors in Cochise County are suing the county’s elections director, asking a judge to order her to give access to midterm election ballots so the county recorder can conduct an expanded hand count audit. It’s the latest development in a months-long saga in which Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, along with Republican […]
What we know and don’t know about Maricopa County’s Election Day ballot debacle
Maricopa County saw widespread problems tabulating ballots on Election Day on Tuesday, and answers are still emerging about what happened. All voters were still able to cast ballots, but many were rightfully concerned because they couldn’t see their ballots counted on site, and many questions remain about the problem. Here’s what Votebeat knows so far, […]
Why Arizona’s ballot count takes longer than Florida’s
Why can’t Arizona be more like Florida? In the last few days, this has become a common refrain. “How come Florida w/ population of 22 million can get same day election results and Arizona w/ population of 7 million can’t?” Greta Van Susteren tweeted Thursday. Florida had posted the vast majority of election results by […]
How the 17,000 ballots cast in “door 3” will be counted after Maricopa County printer problems
Roughly 17,000 Maricopa County voters on Tuesday, about 7% of all in-person voters, were unable to watch machines tabulate their ballots on-site because of a widespread printing problem that caused the on-site machines to reject the ballots, according to Maricopa County officials. Officials have reassured those voters that their ballots will be counted, one way […]
Maricopa County found a solution to the ballot-tabulating problem. Unscanned votes will still be counted.
There were problems tabulating ballots at nearly a third of all vote centers in Maricopa County all morning on Election Day, but by the afternoon, county officials had figured out a fix. Vote-counting machines were having trouble tabulating the ballots because the timing marks on the ballot — the black lines on the sides that […]
Judge blocks Cochise County plan for full hand count of ballots
A judge ruled Monday that Cochise County cannot conduct a hand count of all ballots cast in the midterm election, saying that it is not legal in Arizona. The decision blocks, for now, the latest effort by GOP leaders to hand-count ballots, a method experts say is slower and less accurate than machine counts. Republicans […]
Navajo voters in one Arizona County see their ballots rejected more frequently. Here’s what would fix that.
On the day of the August primary election, Kee Allen Begay Jr. was at a polling place on the Navajo Nation when he overheard voters talking about how they had gone to the wrong polling place. Begay said the voters were told that they had to vote at a different location 20 or so miles […]
Drop box watchers in Arizona connected to national effort from ‘2000 Mules’ creators
The movement to try to catch illegal voting at ballot drop boxes in Arizona, which is spurring complaints and lawsuits alleging voter intimidation, is not the local grassroots effort it appears to be. The drop box watchers are part of a coordinated fast-growing national effort with thousands of volunteers who say they want to help […]
Cochise County backtracks on proposal for full hand-count of ballots in midterm election
Cochise County will not hand-count all ballots cast in the midterm election, as its officials seriously considered as recently as Monday, but will instead increase the number of ballots to be hand-counted under the usual, state-prescribed audit. The county supervisors approved a plan Monday to expand the hand-count audit, giving the impression that they would […]