PHOENIX — From long lines at the polls to misread ballots, Election Day issues have plagued Maricopa County but an effort to make sure things are different this November is happening Tuesday.
The Maricopa County Elections Department will get the tabulation machines and other verification equipment going to make sure everything works the way it should.
County officials will test 1,600 pre-filled practice ballots to make sure the machines get the right read.
"It's a predetermined result, so we'll run the ballots through to make sure we get the exact same result and we'll have the political parties present also signing off on every step of the way," said Elections Director Scott Jarett.
Jarett says they haven't had a faulty test result in the past, but if it were to happen, they would investigate the problem, find a fix, and try again. The county is federally mandated to get a verified accurate result ratio.
They also have backup plans for any machine issues that come up on Election Day, which was the case last November.
"We did have a backup plan, so voters were able to put their ballot into a ballot box to bring their ballot back to be counted at central count," said Jarrett.
Printer errors caused an uproar last November. A report did find longer ballots on heavier paper prevented some printers from getting hot enough to fuse toner to the ballots. The county was using different paper in response to 'sharpie-gate' in 2020, which falsely claimed permanent ink was bleeding through to other ballots.
RELATED: Investigation completed in Maricopa County 2022 election ballot errors
The report also found the printer issues were not tied to any fraud and they had been tested in the same way.
The practice run begins at 1 p.m., but the elections office says it will be closer to 2 p.m. when ballots start processing.
You can watch the live stream from their cameras here.
Here are some important dates to know for the upcoming election:
- October 10: is the deadline to register for the November special election.
- Ballots start to be mailed out on Oct. 11.
- Oct. 31 is the last day to mail-in ballots.
- Election Day is Nov. 7 and 36 drop-off sites will be open.
REGISTRATION NUMBERS:
As of the most recent data Arizona now has more voters registered as Independents than Democrats or Republicans. The lead is slim, with unaffiliated Arizonans surpassing Republicans by just over 5,000. It’s not the first time this happened. Prior to the 2014 election Independent registrations took the lead from Republicans as well. The lead peaked in late 2015 with a net difference of just over 100,000 registered Independents over Republicans. It was short-lived, however, and Republicans took back the lead in early 2016.
Since 2020 registrations have almost exclusively favored Independents. Since the 2022 election voter rolls have grown by 47,000. Democratic registration fell by almost 10,000 Republicans picked up a little over 8,000 registered voters. Independent registrations increased by 46,000.
The numbers look good on paper for a major candidate to mount an Independent statewide run. But there are hurdles. Independents as a group punch well below their weight. In the last election, the Republican vote share was six points higher than their registration share while Independents were a mirror image of this. They voted at seven points under their registration numbers, meaning their impact was not as high as it could have been.
The underperformance is consistent. Voting data shows about 87% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats turned out to vote in 2020. For Independents that number was only 68%. A similar pattern occurred in 2022 when 73% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats voted. Less than half, 48%, of Independents cast a ballot.
