Maricopa County voting centers experienced more tabulator or printing issues than officials previously announced, according to a memo by an attorney who observed the election process.
“It seems very clear that the printer/tabulator failures on election day at 62.61% of the vote centers observed by 11 roving attorneys, and the resulting long lines at a majority of all vote centers, led to substantial voter suppression,” the memo said.
“It is certainly safe to assume that many voters refused to wait in such lines, left the vote center, and did not return to vote later,” the memo read.
“A survey of the electorate could easily confirm such an assumption.”
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 21, 2022
Atty memo: 62% of Maricopa County election centers had voting machines problems on Election Day https://t.co/t5QvnNwptW #OAN
— One America News (@OANN) November 21, 2022
“It seems very clear that the printer/tabulator failures on election day at 62.61% of the vote centers observed by 11 roving attorneys” = “long lines” at vote centers, and “led to substantial voter suppression,” the memo said.https://t.co/DKjPR867Lm
— Elisa Martinez (@elisa1121) November 21, 2022
Daily Caller had the scoop:
Election day tabulator or printer issues affected more Maricopa County, Arizona, voting centers than authorities had previously claimed, according to a memo by an attorney who observed the voting process.
On Nov. 8, the day of the midterm elections, 11 of the roving attorneys tasked with observing election processes in the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Election Integrity program in Arizona collectively visited nearly 52% of the county’s voting centers, according to a memo sent to party officials and candidates by roving attorney Mark Sonnenklar and obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The memo alleged that 72 of those 115 visited centers, or roughly 60%, saw “material problems with the tabulators not being able to tabulate ballots,” resulting in “substantial voter suppression.”
The findings of the memo would indicate that tabulation and printer problems at Maricopa County voting centers were more widespread than elections officials had previously claimed. Though the memo does not address whether tabulation and printer problems may have occurred at the Maricopa County voting centers that the attorneys did not visit, a significant number of those locations may have seen similar issues, given the large sample size of voting centers visited by the roving attorneys.
Sonnenklar wrote that the findings in the memo “directly contradict the statements of County election officials that (1) printer/tabulator issues were limited to only 70 of the 223 vote centers, (2) the printer/tabulator problems were resolved as of 3:00 p.m., and (3) the printer/tabulator issues were insignificant in the entire scheme of the election.”
Maricopa County’s main Twitter account said Nov. 9 that an issue with printers had affected an estimated 17,000 ballots across 70 (about 31%) of the county’s 223 voting centers, with tabulators unable to read some ballots lacking dark enough timing marks.
WHAT HAPPENED: An issue with printers impacting an estimated 17,000 ballots (or less than 7% of Election Day votes).
Some ballots could not be read by the tabulators because the printers did not produce dark enough timing marks on ballots. pic.twitter.com/AdVFjgFjPD
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 10, 2022
That's actually no longer the case, Paul. Maricopa County employs a vote anywhere vote center model. There are 223 voting locations & voters can vote at any of them. Voters will feed the ballot into a precinct-based tabulator and the ballot will be counted right in front of them.
— Maricopa County Recorder's Office (@RecordersOffice) November 8, 2022
“In many cases, the printer/tabulator issues persisted from the beginning of election day until the end of election day,” Sonnenklar wrote.
The Daily Caller News Foundation has not verified the claims in this memo, and the Maricopa County Elections Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The memo quoted one roving attorney as reporting long lines at three of 15 voting sites they visited. Another reported that five of the nine centers they visited had long lines.
“To sum it up, it was a complete mess!” another roving attorney said.
“There is no other way to put it.”
The memo follows a letter sent by Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office demanding explanations for the election issues before the results can be certified.
Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake refused to concede after Democrat Katie Hobbs was projected the winner.
Arizona, we are still in the fight. pic.twitter.com/ytaGvqG5J0
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 17, 2022
According to UncoverDC, the Maricopa County election may be uncertifiable if eyewitness accounts of election workers at the polls are true.
UncoverDC wrote a comprehensive column about Maricopa County Election Judge Karla Sweet’s observations on November 12. Her letter documents multiple issues at the poll, including tabulator malfunctions, long lines, not following procedures as described in the Election Day Manual, and voters who left the polls due to long waits.
The other election workers who have come forward observed many of the same issues, corroborating Sweet’s observations. Each of their declaration letters is important because each poll worker was located in a different area of the center. Their stories corroborate our previous reporting; these declaration letters present new information worth highlighting.
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