Republicans Blame Katie Hobbs as 20 Percent of Vote Tabulators Malfunction in Maricopa County

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“Safe and reliable” voting machines are malfunctioning in polling places all across America, causing long lines, and making it difficult or impossible for people to vote on Election Day in their districts.

Problems were most pronounced in Arizona, where the current Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, is running for governor against Republican powerhouse Kari Lake.

Maricopa County still uses Dominion vote tabulators, even though the company has been embroiled in controversy since the rigged 2020 election. The Cyber Ninjas-led election audit in 2021 uncovered multiple discrepancies—enough to overturn the election result. The machines in 2022 are generally new because those used in the 2020 election “were permanently compromised by the Arizona Senate’s election review,” officials told the Arizona Republic.

In one Maricopa County polling location, a poll worker informed frustrated voters waiting in line that one of its voting tabulators was completely down, and the other one was misreading 25 percent of the votes.

“One of the tabulators is not working, okay? The other tabulator is taking about 75 percent successful. So 25 percent of them are being misread,” he told voters early Tuesday morning. “When it’s misread, you have an option to put it in what’s called box 3, and it gets read—whether it goes downtown and gets read manually, or whether it gets refed into our tabulators.”

“No one’s trying to deceive anybody,” the election worker insisted.

“Of course, not—not on Election Day, that would never happen,” a voter replied sarcastically.

As many as 20 percent of the tabulating machines throughout Maricopa County were malfunctioning on Election Day, according Maricopa County’s Recorder Stephen Richer and Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors Bill Gates.

“How in the hell can 1/5 of vote tabulating machines in the biggest county in the state stop working on Election Day?” tweeted RealClearPolitics founder and president Tom Bevan.

Republican pollster Rich Baris (People’s Pundit) said the issues are “absolutely is impacting the vote” because “‘Draw 3’ ballots will be adjudicated later, not today.” He added: “It’s a shit show.”

Civil rights attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who is leading Lake’s Election Day legal operations, provided following guidance on Twitter for Maricopa County voters:

If you’ve *checked in* at a Maricopa County voting location where tabulators don’t work, you should *not* leave & go to another location without casting a vote. Your provisional ballot at new location likely will not count.

If you HAVE already checked in at a Maricopa County voting location where the tabulators do not work, you can (1) wait for your ballot to be tabulated on site, (2) ask to use the disabled voting machine, or (3) leave your ballot in a box to be counted later at HQ.

If you have NOT checked in to vote in Maricopa County, and you are informed that the tabulating machines are not working there, you can go vote at another site in the county. Here’s a list to find a place with a small line: https://elections.maricopa.gov/voting/where-to-vote.html

And if you are leaving your ballot in the box to be tabulated later, we have trained Republican volunteers who will follow and track the transportation of these ballots and monitor their counting. This was pre-arranged given prior issues in Maricopa County. Do VOTE!

If you checked in, voted at a place with non-functioning tabulators for and left your ballot in Box 3 to be tabulated later, in most cases this should be tabulated TONIGHT based on prior elections. It’s the third option, second option being using the disability machines. VOTE!

Kari Lake echoed Dhillon’s message on Twitter:

“I am getting flooded with calls and text messages from people who are having trouble voting all over Maricopa County. THIS is why we must reform our elections,” Lake said.

Dhillon and other Republicans pointed out that the same woman who is responsible for the election day chaos in Arizona, wants to be the governor.

 

During the campaign, Lake and her team repeatedly called for Hobbs to recuse herself from overseeing the the elections in Arizona.

Baris stressed that the issues are serious, and were completely avoidable.

Republican Blake Masters, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Mark Kelly, urged fellow Republicans to use their anger frustration productively, and flood the zone.

Independent journalist Emerald Robinson has a roundup of other voting machine snafus throughout the nation—including in Texas, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Georgia—on her substack. 

Update:

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced late Tuesday afternoon that the RNC would join another GOP group to file an emergency motion to extend poll hours in Maricopa County due to the voting issues.

“The RNC is joining a Republican coalition to file an emergency motion to extend poll hours in Maricopa County because voting machines in over 25% of voting locations have experienced significant issues,” McDaniel tweeted.

“The widespread issues – in an election administered by Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – are completely unacceptable, especially as Republicans flock to the polls to vote in-person on Election Day,” she added.

“We have dozens of attorneys and thousands of volunteers on the ground working to solve this issue and ensure that Arizona voters have the chance to make their voices heard,” McDaniel concluded.

Update:

A Department of Homeland Security “Election Integrity” group accused a TPUSA journalist who reported on this issue on Election day of spreading a false narrative about the election online. But the reporter, Tyler Bowyer, was correct that the tabulators were unable to read many ballots because printers did not produce dark enough timing marks on them.

About Debra Heine

Debra Heine is a conservative Catholic mom of six and longtime political pundit. She has written for several conservative news websites over the years, including Breitbart and PJ Media.

Photo: PHOENIX, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 08: Bill Gates, Chairman of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, speaks about voting machine malfunctions at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on November 08, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona. He said that about 20 percent of polling stations in the county have had tabulation machine malfunctions, where some ballots cannot be read. These ballots, he said, are being set aside for tabulation at the central election center in the evening after the polls close. After months of candidates campaigning, Americans are voting in the midterm elections to decide close races across the nation. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

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