Republican turnout is allegedly reaching record highs in many places across the nation on Election Day. Unfortunately, many jurisdictions are experiencing issues with tabulators, having enough paper, and long lines. Since early Tuesday, voters in Maricopa County, AZ have reported issues with tabulators. Some are estimating 20 percent of the ballots are being rejected in Maricopa. 26-plus polling locations in Maricopa are experiencing problems.
Maricopa County Tabulators Reject Ballots
Issues with QR codes and toner seem to be at the heart of the ballot rejections, but it is difficult to know for sure. In Arizona and many other states, voters cast their ballots at voter centers instead of precincts, so the volume of voters can be high. Many are upset because the Maricopa Board of Elections reassured voters yesterday all machines were double and triple-tested and ready to go. In Arizona, the person running the state's elections is the current Secretary of State. Katie Hobbs (D) is running against Kari Lake for the governor's seat. She insisted on purchasing $1.2 million brand new voting machines after the Arizona audit because she could no longer trust the "security and integrity of the equipment."
Arizona GOP Chairwoman, Kelli Ward, has posted a number of tweets to help keep voters informed. She says some ballot rejections may be due to "[in]adequate toner and paper."
Other counties in Arizona are experiencing the same issue with toner and paper. Here is a ballot from Mesa County. Bad printing forces the adjudication of ballots.
In other cases, the candidate for governor is asking voters to continue to wait for their votes to be properly tabulated rather than put the ballot in "box 3," as requested by some poll workers. She also posted an informational link for voters who may not know where to vote. During a press conference today, Lake reassured reporters she is not alleging fraud, but she is "standing up for the people of Arizona," adding, "If we don't have honest elections, we don't have a country."
RNC attorney Harmeet Dillon is on the scene in Arizona. She gave advice to voters who are experiencing issues and also provided a link to find voting locations.
The Maricopa County Elections Department publicly addressed the matter late afternoon on Tuesday. They identified a solution and are currently working to resolve the issue.
Pollster Rich Baris is following the situation closely. He says even without these issues, election day turnout numbers are so high, ballots will likely not be counted on election day. He believes the problems Maricopa County is experiencing "absolutely is impacting the vote." He believes election officials "were presented with a data-based argument making it very clear they needed to be prepared for a massive turnout on Election Day."
Other States: High Turnout and Problems at the Polls
Arizona is not the only state where election turnout is high. One voter told UncoverDC that a polling place in Chatham County, NC, "ran out of Republican ballots by midmorning on Tuesday." As is the case in Arizona, NY 17 lines have been outside the polling room today.
Turnout in Florida seems to be approaching record numbers, according to one Twitter user. Midterms "usually do around 50 percent." Baris believes it will be a "quick race call" tonight for Florida.
Voting issues are cropping up in Michigan, Georgia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. As of this morning, ballot scanners were not working in Mercer County, New Jersey, "forcing voters to fill out paper ballots to be counted manually." Results will likely be delayed because of the scanner issue there. In Luzerne County, PA, polling places allegedly ran out of ballots. In a battle over misdated ballots in Pennsylvania, a judge decided to allow voters to fix and count the ballots even though the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law "disqualifying all mail-in ballots without accurate dates. The case is explained below:
Voters in Detroit are showing up at polls, only to be allegedly "told they have already voted absentee." The lawsuit against absentee ballots cast filed by candidate Kristina Karamo was thrown out for lack of evidence on Monday.
President Trump is following along on Truth Social and making his own comments on the situation.
UncoverDC spoke with Johnny Vieira, developer of the VotifyNow app being used by many voters to report incidents in 30-40 states across the country. He is getting thousands of reports and encourages voters to continue to report through the evening if need be. According to Vieira, a voter in Montgomery County, Ohio, reported that during voting, "when he chose the candidate he wanted," his vote repeatedly flipped to the challenging opponent. He was told, "it was a known glitch in the system." Another in Maricopa County involved mail-in ballots. The voter checked the secretary of state's website about his ballot. The website stated he was sent a ballot when he never requested one and he "wonder[ed] where the ballot was sent."
In another incident related to voter opinion polling, an individual in New Hampshire was polled by telephone and asked the question, "In the last election, many people were not allowed to vote, did you get to vote." When the individual asked what the pollster meant, she replied, "Like illegal aliens," to which the respondent stated, "They are not allowed to vote by law." Her response was, "Well, they live here."
Many jurisdictions will be late with their counts, not just because of the turnout. In Harris County, TX, there are apparently not enough digital drive readers and the ones they have can "only be read 2 at a time."
