When voting began at 6 a.m. Tuesday, 62 Maricopa County polling places were not ready for voters. The check-in equipment that allows poll workers to verify voters’ identity had not been set up, leaving some voters unable to secure ballots for hours. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office blamed its IT contractor for the issues. The Tempe-based contractor pointed the finger back on an unprepared recorder’s office. Regardless of fault, thousands of Maricopa County voters found themselves bouncing between voting locations, casting provisional ballots or, in some cases, giving up on voting altogether. “This is not a hiccup,” Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes conceded. “This is a serious concern where voters across Maricopa County couldn’t get voting.”
Fontes and Secretary of State Michele Reagan hatched a plan to keep voting booths open an extra two hours to try to compensate for the early-morning issues, but it was derailed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which feared extending the voting deadline would confuse voters.
The problems triggered flashbacks to the 2016 presidential preference election, when tens of thousands of voters were frustrated by long lines, causing more than 100,000 to walk away from the polls without casting ballots.
Former County Recorder Helen Purcell lost her job over the fiasco, paving the way for Fontes, who was elected after promising to overhaul the balloting system.
Full Article: Arizona voting problems: Who is to blame?.