PHOENIX — The investigation into errors with Maricopa County's 2022 Election Day ballots has been completed and released.
The 27-page report was released Monday by former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor as she was hired to do an independent review of elections day issues in Maricopa County.
Back in November, after the election, officials said that issues were not because of a toner, but a fuser that caused precincts to change the heat settings.
For the most part, the report confirms the initial findings as election officials used a longer ballot with heavier paper which caused certain printers to not get hot enough to transfer ink to the paper. "The combined effect of the heavy paper, longer ballot, and intermittent burst of print demand pushed the printers to perform at the very edge of or past their capability so that any decrease in fuser performance in an individual printer could result in problems," the report read.
According to the report, the investigative team organized printers into groups depending on if the printers were in vote centers with reported problems or not.
They found in their testing that one-in-four ballots were misread due to heat fuser issues with printers when the ballot-on-demand printer was used in a way similar to how it would have been on Election Day.
They also found a small percentage of ballots, less than 1%, where the software randomly printed ballots on a “fit to page” setting, also causing the ballot to be misread.
The report says despite the problems all ballots printed on election day were eventually counted.
The report left several recommendations including replacing some of the printers, using lighter paper again, and changing how printers are tested before elections.
"Another approach is to eliminate the use of on-site tabulators. Maricopa County could return to its earlier practice, and that used in half of Arizona’s counties, 54, and transport the ballots from vote centers to the MCTEC for tabulation in the more powerful central count tabulators. During the 2022 general election, that procedure permitted tabulation of the misprinted ballots in Maricopa County," the report added.
As for who was at fault, McGregor concluded it was likely because of equipment failure. "Finally, we were asked to determine whether the problems occurring on election day were the result of human error, procedural shortcomings, or equipment failure. Although separating related causes is always difficult, in my judgment, the primary cause of the election day failures was equipment failure."'
Read the full report below
