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Five minutes before the Maricopa County polls closed on Tuesday, a judge rejected Republicans’ emergency appeal to keep voting for an additional three hours. Judge Tim Ryan of the Maricopa County Superior Court rejected claims that technological malfunctions at 30% of polling places prevented voters from exercising their right to vote.
During a hearing, Ryan stated: “The court doesn’t have any proof that any voter was denied their right to vote.” The Republican National Committee sued to keep Maricopa County polls open for three more hours, claiming that they were unable to vote due to problems with the voting machines and misinformed instructions from poll workers.
Kory Langhofer, an attorney for the RNC, pleaded with the judge to grant voters until 10 p.m. to cast provisional ballots. to guarantee the validity of their votes. Additionally, he requested that the judge “delay revealing the results of the election by the same period of time.”
Here’s an update 🧵 on the printer issue with some Vote Center ballots yesterday:
WHAT’S IMPORTANT: All ballots affected will be counted securely and accurately.
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 10, 2022
According to Langhofer, voters were given contradictory directions at voting locations, leading them to believe they could cast their ballots elsewhere. They later learned that they had to cast a provisional ballot at the new sites, which is held until officials can confirm its validity.
According to county attorney Tom Liddy, no voters were barred from voting. The 223 polling places in the county were open all day. Not a single one was shut, he declared. Not even for a minute. Liddy oversees the division that represents the county in court: the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Nearly a month has passed since the last mail-in election, he said. Even if they ended up filing a provisional ballot, no voter was turned away from a voting location. Additionally, Liddy warned that extending the voting period may invite allegations of electoral fraud, which certain GOP candidates have regularly brought up since the 2020 presidential election.
Many candidates, like Arizona’s Kari Lake for governor, have made allegations of election fraud a central part of their campaigns. Lake has urged supporters to cast their ballots in person rather than by mail. She and Mark Finchem, a candidate for secretary of state, filed a lawsuit to prevent the use of voting machines in the 2022 election. After the action was dismissed, they published an appeal notice.
Election Day is here!
🗳️ Polls are open for in-person voting until 7 p.m.
🗳️ Ballots must be received no later than 7 p.m.
✅ Find your polling place here: https://t.co/i39ujU0zTk pic.twitter.com/nWkKsSOSkc— Doug Ducey (@DougDucey) November 8, 2022
Roy Herrera, a Phoenix attorney, intervened on the government’s side by submitting a motion. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, also opposed extending the voting period. According to him, Arizona law is crystal clear regarding polling place hours, and a request to extend voting hours during the COVID-19 outbreak was denied by the courts.
Herrera replied, “There’s nothing exceptional in this circumstance. U.S. and Lake In the lawsuit, which was filed shortly after 5 p.m., plaintiffs included Senate candidate Blake Masters. It was reported that voters who complied with instructions and went to a second polling place either missed their chance to cast a ballot or had to use a provisional ballot.
The complaint demanded that the provisional ballots not be counted and be set aside. The lawsuit claims that “at least 36% of all Maricopa County voting facilities have been plagued by chronic and systemic breakdowns of ballot tabulation machines and printers, which have burdened voters with inordinate delays and long queues.”
Voters cast ballots in front of the nation, emphasizing particular points of view. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and County Recorder Stephen Richer were named in the lawsuit; however, Richer was excluded from the proceeding on Tuesday.
Operations on Election Day are handled by the county Elections Department, not the Recorder’s Office. Poll workers allegedly forced voters to “discard their ballots or otherwise forgo their opportunity to cast a legally sufficient vote,” according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, poll workers misinformed voters that they could “spoil their ballot,” present themselves at a new voting place later, and cast a lawful, regular ballot. But the lawsuit claimed that wasn’t what actually transpired.
Election officials from the county reported on Tuesday that at least 30% of polling places had issues with voting tabulators not being able to read formatting markings on ballots. According to officials, the printed markers were not dark enough for the tabulators to properly register them.
Instead of counting the ballots once voters fill them out, the tabulators just spit them out. Tuesday, Fields Moseley, a spokesman for Maricopa County, stated he was unable to comment on the case. 67 of the 223 polling places, according to him, “had some sort of issue with rejected votes.”
Board of Supervisors chair Bill Gates stated on Monday that the county will not voluntarily extend voting hours. He declared, “There is no other way this county will extend the voting hours beyond those who arrive at 7 p.m.
Arizona’s 2022 election results. Takeaways from a day of hiccups, plots, and a lawsuit: It all revolves around Maricopa County Major Arizona races that have not yet been decided. Arizona’s midterm elections were notable for GOP defections and Democratic spending.
Republicans, according to Langhofer, wanted to make sure that everyone had the opportunity to cast a ballot and that “voters’ rights are maintained.” Republican voters outnumbered Democrats at the polls by a factor of 3.5, according to Langhofer, who claimed that polling issues were not directed against Republican districts or voters.
The court decided against the Republican National Committee, according to attorney Harmeet Dhillon, “despite the admitted difficulties with voting in Maricopa County, and several factual affidavits from voters harmed by faulty instructions and broken technology,” he wrote on Twitter.
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