In Maricopa County, Ariz., the nation’s second largest voting jurisdiction in the country, around 44,000 people had already voted this morning when election officials posted a video explaining a voting machine glitch.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said that while voting was going well, there was an issue with some voting machines in the county.
“There’s one thing that we wanted to address, to make people aware of today, and that has to do with our tabulators,” he said. “We’ve got about 20% of our locations out there where there’s an issue with the tabulator, where some of the ballots, after people have voted…they try to run them through the tabulator and they’re not going through.”
Gates said that the county was working to fix the issue. He also said that voters shouldn’t worry, as there is a redundancy system in place. People who can’t put the ballot in the tabulator can place them into a secure box connected to the tabulator.
Those votes would be counted as part of the central count, Gates explained.
“This would function much like early voting,” added Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
During a press conference last month, Gates addressed unfounded allegations of election fraud in the county dating back to the 2020 presidential election.
“As I’ve said many times before… 2020 election in Maricopa County was the most scrutinized in the history of the world,” Gates said. During early voting in the county, there were reports of people showing up armed to polling places to watch voters in the county.
Time Magazine reported Tuesday that the tabulator issue was already fueling right-wing conspiracy theories.
At around 4:30 p.m. ET, Maricopa County announced that a solution to the issue – which effected 60 vote centers – was identified and had worked at 17 of the centers.
“Technicians deployed throughout the county are working to resolve this issue at the remaining locations,” said Maricopa County.
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