PHOENIX — Election day issues at numerous vote centers run by Maricopa County during last November’s election were the result of equipment failures and not caused by human error or an intentional act, despite contentions by an expert hired by losing Republican governor’s candidate Kari Lake, a new report concludes.
The report released by the county on Monday was written by Ruth McGregor, a former chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court who was hired by the county. She investigated problems that helped lead to long lines at some polling places after on-site ballot tabulators were unable to read some voters’ completed ballots.
The county traced the problem to printers at about 60 of the county’s 223 vote centers that failed to produce ballots that could be read by tabulators. Under the system, ballots that match the specific races on each voter’s ballot are printed when the person checks in, are filled out by the voter and then placed by them in a vote-counting machine.
