WATCH: Arizona officials claim that every ballot will count after a printing error
PHOENIX (AP) — Election officials assured voters that every ballot would be counted after a printing malfunction at about one-quarter of the polling places across Arizona’s most populous county slowed down voting.
The snag on Tuesday fueled conspiracy theories about the integrity of the vote in the tightly contested state as former President Donald Trump, GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and others tried to make the case that Democrats were seeking to subvert the vote of Republicans, who tend to show up in greater numbers in person on Election Day.
Officials said that 17,000 ballots in Maricopa County were affected, which is about 7 percent of the 275,000 that were dropped off Tuesday. There are approximately 4.5million people living in the county, which also includes Phoenix, and about 2.5 million registered voters. More than 80 percent of the population votes early, with most voting by mail.
At 60 of 223 voting centers, printers that didn’t produce dark enough markings on ballots were at issue. Some voters tried to insert their ballots into tabulators but were told to wait or to use another machine. These votes were expected to be tallied Wednesday.
Officials fixed the problem by changing the printer settings.
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After polls closed, Republican Bill Gates, chairman of the county’s board of supervisors, apologized and said “every voter had the opportunity to vote and have their vote counted.”
Arizona counties make it difficult to count ballots at the polling places. Officials bring the ballots in to a central location for counting.
At the county’s tabulation center on Wednesday, workers wore purple gloves to protect the paper from dirt and sweat and used metal carts to carry stacks of boxes containing ballots to be scanned into election machines. Workers were observing the tabulation process and then labeled the ballots, sealed them with red tape and stored them in case of future problems.
By midday, there were no protests outside.
As part of the security Tuesday night outside the county’s tabulation center in downtown Phoenix, 11 officers patrolled the area on horseback, a fairly common practice at protests in metropolitan Phoenix in the past. Even after the polls closed, no protestors were seen at the site.
“There’s nothing that happened here today that would indicate a need to be out here, a need to address some injustice,” Gates said. “We had an issue with printers that has been addressed by the good people of Maricopa County.”
Voting was slowed in traditionally Democratic and Republican areas, particularly at an outlet mall in conservative Anthem. Some voters reported that they had to wait several hours before being able to vote using the only tabulator that worked.
Lake and several other candidates on the Arizona ballot have pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential race, amplifying Trump’s lies about a stolen election. But election officials from both political parties and members of Trump’s own Cabinet have said there was no widespread voter fraud and that Trump lost reelection to Democrat Joe Biden.
This report was contributed by Bob Christie and Jacques Billeaud, both Associated Press writers.
