Arizonans’ Ability to Vote Not Affected By Hiccup in Vote Tabulation Machines
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Vote tabulator machines experienced errors in Arizona
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All votes were still counted correctly
What Happened?
Early on Election Day, vote tabulator errors were reported in Arizona. Officials said that an issue with printers impacted an estimated 17,000 ballots (or less than 7% of Election Day votes). These ballots could not be read by the tabulators because the printers did not produce dark enough timing marks on ballots. Maricopa County election officials said that the issue is affected around 70 polling places.
Why Did This Happen?
Maricopa County Board of Elections is investigating. The printer settings were the same ones they used in the August Primary and the paper was the same thickness. Prior to the General Election, the Board of Elections test-printed and test-tabulated hundreds of ballots without issue.
Voters Were Not Affected
The faulty tabulators did not stop people from casting their vote. Affected voters were able to "spoil" their ballot and go to a different polling place or deposit their ballot into a dropbox that was collected after polls closed. All ballots cast through the dropbox were counted Wednesday, November 9th.
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, clarified that this process is how the vast majority of counties in Arizona handle tabulation errors.
"Everyone is still being able to vote, Bill Gates said. "No one is being disenfranchised. None of this indicates any fraud."