Right-wing figures make unfounded claims about Maricopa vote : NPR
Bill Gates (right), chair of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors talks about Tuesday’s malfunctioning voting machines at the Maricopa Tabulation and Election Center, Phoenix, Ariz.
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Bill Gates (right), chair of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors talks about Tuesday’s malfunctioning voting machines at the Maricopa Tabulation and Election Center, Phoenix, Ariz.
John Moore/Getty Images
Follow live updates and see the results of the 2022 midterm elections here.
About 1 in 5 polling locations in Maricopa County, Ariz., were experiencing a technical problem with their ballot tabulator machines in the first hours of Election Day — but officials assured voters their ballots would still be counted, thanks to redundancy protocols.
“We’ve got around 20% of the locations where there’s an problem with the tabulator,” Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican said in a video posted online. He explained that the problem was caused by the fact that some voters had filled out their ballots, but the machine wouldn’t accept them.
Gates indicated that voters could put their ballot in a “secure box” located below the tabulator. County Recorder Stephen Richer explained that these ballots would then be collected and sent off to Maricopa’s “central Tabulators”.
Richer said, “This is what the majority Arizona counties do every election day.”
The county announced that it had found the solution to the tabulation problems at 60 Vote Centres around mid-afternoon local. This issue seems to be resolved by county technicians who have changed the printer settings. It seems that some printers were not producing dark enough time marks on the ballots.
Fuel for baseless right-wing claims
Right-leaning influencers quickly used the issues with the tabulators to fuel their claims that 2022 midterms were vulnerable to fraud. According to the Election Integrity Partnership (a research coalition that focuses mainly on misinformation surrounding elections),
“Attention spiked following a tweet by Charlie Kirk, which fuelled others who claim that these machine failures were deliberate.” the research group said.
“There is a high probability that these narratives about machine malfunctions will gain momentum in other states,” said the Election Integrity Partnership, adding that influencers are looking to amplify such stories.
It is not unusual for machines to malfunction or other issues to occur during election time, when millions rush to vote.
Politicians and pundits can react to such snags in a variety ways. They may encourage voters to bear the delay, or suggest that the problems could be a sign of a coordinated conspiracies.
Blake Masters, Arizona senatorial candidate, and Tyler Bowyer (Republican National Committee member) tweeted about the problem Tuesday. Former President Donald Trump — who has spent the past two years sowing doubts and mistruths about the U.S. election system — also weighed in, saying that in Maricopa, problems were reported in GOP-leaning areas.
“Here we go again?” Trump stated it on the Truth Social platform. “The people will not stand !!!”.”
“Hard not to know if you’re seeing incompetence and something worse.” Masters wrote. “All we can say is that the Democrats want you to get discouraged and return home.”
The issue has been front-and centre in the governor’s race: Republican Kari lake is an election denier who is running to defeat Democrat Katie Hobbs (current secretary-of-state).
