Limited Answers About Maricopa County’s Ballot Printing Problem Raises More Questions

pima county vote tabulator

Maricopa County Board Chair Bill Gates has promised to investigate why ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers issued nearly 17,000 ballots to voters on Election Day with faulty timing marks which prevented the ballots from being read by tabulator machines at some of the county’s 223 voting centers.

Those ballots were printed on the same weight (100 pound) and thickness of paper used during the Primary Election in August with no problem, according to Gates, who has championed the efforts by county IT professionals and contractors to fix the timing mark problem by early afternoon.

But by then the frustration of many voters and candidates could not be restrained. And some of the answers gleaned from county officials and county documents in recent days raise more questions about what happened.

Maricopa County says it used two different brands of printers on Election Day to provide in-person voters with the proper ballot. Only one brand -Oki- experienced a problem, according to Elections Department spokeswoman Megan Gilbertson.

But that problem, as thousands of Maricopa County voters quickly discovered, resulted in some BOD ballots containing fuzzy timing marks which could not be read by tabulators in 67 voting centers. Those timing marks, which were to be printed as solid black boxes or rectangles, are used by tabulator machines to scan, or read, each ballot and count the votes on the ballot.

In a hastily called press conference around 9 a.m. on Election Day, Gates and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer advised voters who needed to leave to simply place their completed but untabulated ballot into Door 3, a slot on the tabulator.

Voters were also advised by Gates they could head to another voting center if they could not wait for the tabulator problem to be corrected. Unfortunately, an undetermined number of voters relied on Gates’ suggestion, which failed to advise voters to first spoil their ballot and check out at the initial voting center before going to another voting center.

Maricopa County elections officials have not estimated how many voters may have been caught between the “two voting center option” although it is hoped they were provided provisional ballots which should eventually be counted. The printer problems were resolved by 2 p.m. at all voting centers.

As to the ballots placed in Door 3, they were to be taken to the central Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) to be run through another tabulator in hopes of having the votes finally counted without further handling. It is unclear why MCTEC tabulators would have a different timing mark tolerance than those used on Election Day in the county’s voting centers.

Maricopa County officials have estimated roughly 7 percent of all in-person election day ballots cast in the county were put into Door 3. That number is well above the number of ballots which typically end up untabulated during in-person voting, according to veteran poll workers and observers.

Another concern for Maricopa County voters who chose the Door 3 option is whether the unexpectedly large number of uncounted ballots resulted in an unintended “co-mingling” of Door 3 ballots with ballots already properly counted by the tabulator.

This happened, according to some observers, at three Maricopa County voting centers. However, it is unknown whether there was a way for election workers to limit the scope of any co-mingling or to immediately segregate the counted from the uncounted ballots as soon as the problem was discovered.

Maricopa County also used Lexmark printers for BOD printing of election day ballots. The printers, and the service – maintenance contract, were obtained through Runbeck Election Services, the same company which prints and mails out early ballots for most counties.

There was no timing mark problem identified during in-person election day voting during the Primary Election in August even though both models of BOD printers were utilized in Maricopa County, county officials say. But the county’s 2022 Elections Plan found on its website shows only the Lexmark printers were utilized during the primary for early in-person voting.

So why did Maricopa County suddenly have a problem with the Oki printers on Nov. 8? One possibility, according to IT professionals, is that the ballot paper used at the voting centers was from a different manufacturer than used in previous elections.

Another technical question is where the BOD printer toner packs were stored leading up to election day. Just days before the election, overnight temperatures across the Phoenix area dipped to 45 degrees on Nov. 4, and never made it above 50 degrees from Nov. 3 to Nov. 6.

In an unrelated matter, there were reports on Election Day morning of some poll workers using a pen to fill in the timing marks, or encouraging voters to do so. No one from Maricopa County has addressed this issue, which could potentially be a violation of ARS 16-1016 which makes it a Class 5 felony for someone who “knowingly detains, alters, mutilates or destroys ballots or election returns.”

The impacted voting centers have been identified by Maricopa County officials as being situated in a variety of neighborhoods that were not disproportionately located in Republican enclaves. They were:

· Altrain Medical and Dental Assisting Academy

· Asante Library

· Biltmore Fashion Park

· Black Mountain Baptist Church

· Buckeye Fire Station No. 704

· Calvary Free Lutheran Church

· Cave Creek Town Hall

· Chandler Nature Center

· Charles W. Harris School

· Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — Southern

· Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — Union Hills

· Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — Mesa Maricopa Stake

· Copper Canyon School

· Copper Hills Church

· Cottonwood Country Club

· Deer Valley Airport

· Deer Valley Unified School District Office

· Desert Christian Fellowship

· Desert Hills Community Church

· Eldorado Park Community Center

· Estrella Mountain School — Goodyear.

· Faith Baptist Church.

· Footprint Center.

· Gateway Fellowship Church — SBC.

· Gilbert Freestone Recreation Center.

· Glendale Christian Church.

· Glendale Community College — Student Union.

· Grace in the Desert Adventist Church.

· Happy Trails Resort.

· Islamic Center — Scottsdale.

· Journey Church.

· Lakes Recreation Center — Westbrook Village.

· Laveen Elementary School District Office.

· Lifeway Church.

· Light and Life Church.

· Litchfield Park First Baptist Church.

· Love of Christ Lutheran Church.

· Marley Park.

· Memorial Presbyterian Church.

· Mesa Baptist Church.

· Messinger Mortuary.

· Mountain Park Health Center.

· Mountain View Park Community Center.

· Mountain View School.

· North Scottsdale United Methodist Church.

· Outlets at Anthem.

· Palm Lane School.

· Queen Creek Library.

· Radiant Church — Sun City.

· Salt River Pima Community Center.

· Scottsdale Elks Lodge PBOE No. 2148.

· Southeast Regional Library.

· Sevilla Elementary School.

· Shadow Mountain High School.

· Shadow Rock Congregational Church.

· Shepherd of the Hills United Church of Christ.

· Skyway Church.

· St. Nikolas Serbian Orthodox Church.

· Standing Stones Community Church.

· Sun Lakes United Methodist Church.

· Tomahawk School

· Trinity Bible Church of Sun City West

· Tumbleweed Recreation Center

· University Presbyterian Church

· Valley Baptist Church — Tonopah

· Velda Rose United Methodist Church

· Via Linda Senior Center — Scottsdale

· Victory Lutheran Church

· Youngker High School No. 201

· Youngtown Clubhouse