Monday, investigators from Maricopa County released a report on the irregularities observed during the midterm elections of 2022. The county had experienced severe ballot printing issues that drew criticism from Republicans.
Maricopa, the largest county in Arizona, has recently been scrutinized for alleged election irregularities and voter fraud in recent elections, specifically the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 gubernatorial election. Just the News reported that the county’s ballot printers and tabulators encountered significant issues on Election Day, drawing criticism from Republicans.
Ruth McGregor, the former chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, oversaw the team of investigators who authored the report. According to their analysis, changes in ballot length and paperweight have placed a strain on the capabilities of some of the older printers.
Between the August primaries and the November general election, the county increased the length of the ballots from 19 inches to 20 inches in order to accommodate all the required information. According to the report, the combination of the larger ballot size and the use of 100-pound ballot paper was a significant burden on the printers, leading to the observed irregularities.
“Based on our tests, and for the reasons described in this report, we concluded that the combined effect of using 100-pound ballot paper and a 20- inch ballot during the 2022 general election was to require that the Oki B432 printers perform at the extreme edge of their capability, a level that could not be reliably sustained by a substantial number of printers,” says the report.
However, the investigators stressed that there was no reason for election officials to have anticipated such a problem.
“Any failure in process or human error relates to a failure to anticipate and prepare for the printer failures experienced,” the investigators wrote. “But nothing we learned in our interviews or document reviews gave any clear indication that the problems should have been anticipated.”
The release of the report coincides with an ongoing challenge to the Arizona gubernatorial election results by former Republican candidate Kari Lake, who has cited election irregularities and claimed that machine errors in the county may have prevented her supporters from voting, thereby costing her the race.
According to a report published on Tuesday, Lake is considering her next professional step, which will not be music to the ears of many Democrats.
Mediaite reported that during an appearance on One America News, she stated that she is “seriously considering” a Senate run in 2024.
“I am seriously considering a run for Senate, yes absolutely,” she said. “We’re not going away. And so I am seriously considering a run for Senate.”
She also discussed her poll figures in comparison to those of her prospective opponents, including Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Democratic candidate Representative Ruben Gallego.
“All the polling shows that I would win,” she said. “Not just the primary, the polling is showing that I would beat Kyrsten Sinema and this socialist guy that’s running for the Democrats, [Rep. Ruben] Gallego.”
More on this story via Conservative Brief:
In a three-person race Lake and Gallego continue to poll in a dead heat, with Sinema a distant third.CONTINUE READING…
