A video out of Maricopa County, Arizona on Tuesday showed a man who appeared to be a county election worker advising dozens of voters waiting in line that their vote tabulation machines are not working.
“We have two tabulators,” the apparent poll worker said in the video. “One of the tabulators is not working, okay. The other tabulator is taking about 75 percent successful, so 25 percent of them are being misread. And it could be a printer issue or it could be the tabulator itself.”
The apparent poll worker then said voters waiting in line have the option to either put their ballots into “what’s called Box 3, and it gets read whether it goes downtown and gets read manually or whether it gets re-fed into our tabulator. They will get read.”
As the poll worker talked, a man in the background could be heard saying, “we don’t want to adjudicate, no.”
The poll worker then said, while laughing, that “no one is trying to deceive anybody.”
“Of course not, not on election day,” a man in the background said. “That would never happen.”
A woman standing in line then asks, if she completes her ballot and the tabulation machine doesn’t work, if she can take her completed ballot to another location to have it counted. The poll worker responded that voters “cannot leave the premises with the ballot.”
“I don’t trust it to go in a box,” the woman replied. “The box may never be counted. This happens all the time.”
The woman then left her place in the line.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office has not yet responded to an American Military News request for comment on the situation. The Maricopa County Elections Department also did not respond to an American Military News request for comment.
The video has already caught viral attention and Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake shared it, tweeting, “I am getting flooded with calls and text messages from people who are having trouble voting all over Maricopa County. THIS is why we must reform our elections.”
Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward tweeted, “BIG problems with @MaricopaVote. Tabulator ‘malfunctions’ at at least 6 places. DO NOT PUT YOUR BALLOT IN ‘BOX 3’ TO BE ‘TABULATED DOWNTOWN.’ Maricopa will not be turning on the downtown tabulators today. Find your next nearest polling place here: http://Maricopa.vote.”
Minutes later, Ward tweeted, “Up to 15 locations reported in Maricopa County with ‘tabulator malfunctions.’ Is this incompetence or malfeasance from @stephen_richer & @MaricopaVote? Or both?”
After Ward advised voters on how to find other locations to vote, Republican lawyer Harmeet Dhillon relayed new guidance for voters not to leave their current polling locations if they’ve already checked in.
“Latest guidance for Maricopa County voters: If you’ve *checked in* at a Maricopa County voting location where tabulators don’t work, you should *not* leave & go to another location without casting a vote,” Dhillon tweeted. “Your provisional ballot at new location likely will not count/cont’d/.”
“If you have NOT checked in to vote in Maricopa County, and you are informed that the tabulating machines are not working there, you can go vote at another site in the county,” Dhillon continued. “Here’s a list to find a place with a small line: https://elections.maricopa.gov/voting/where-to-vote.html.”
“And if you are leaving your ballot in the box to be tabulated later, we have trained Republican volunteers who will follow and track the transportation of these ballots and monitor their counting,” Dhillon continued. “This was pre-arranged given prior issues in Maricopa County. Do VOTE!”
