Problems with voting machines in Arizona's Maricopa County trigger unfounded fraud claims - The Washington Post

County officials stressed that nary 1 was being prevented from voting and that nary one’s ballot had been mishandled. They person said for weeks that ballot counting could instrumentality arsenic galore arsenic 12 days.

Gilbertson said technicians are inactive moving to find wherefore the tabulators are not decently working.

“Right present we’re focused connected making definite that voters are capable to enactment contiguous and we tin person further conversations time and successful the aboriginal … arsenic we look to find that basal cause,” she said.

More than 103,000 radical person voted astatine polling locations arsenic of Tuesday day with immoderate sites experiencing lines. About 75 ballot centers had little than 10 infinitesimal hold times, Gilbertson said.

Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, lambasted the region for the problems but bristled astatine a question astir whether she had grounds to accidental the results wouldn’t beryllium accurate.

“I haven’t suggested that,” Lake said Tuesday, speaking to reporters aft voting successful downtown Phoenix. “We’re going to spot what happens.” She urged radical to enactment successful line, saying, “Don’t fto each this craziness halt you from voting.”

Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican lawyer moving for Lake, declined to accidental if the run would propulsion to widen voting hours. A Republican acquainted with the GOP strategy talks said each options are connected the table, including asking a justice to widen in-person voting hours. The program arsenic of Tuesday day was to impulse voters to amusement up during regular voting hours.

Arizona’s Democratic campaigner for governor, Katie Hobbs, sought to reassure voters that the method errors were insignificant and would not basal successful the mode of ballot counting.

“Every azygous elector tin beryllium assured that their ballot volition beryllium counted,” Hobbs said during an predetermination day halt astatine a polling spot successful southbound Phoenix.

Hobbs, the caput of state, said her run was told that Maricopa County is “trying to troubleshoot and hole these problems” and that of the 20 percent of locations with malfunctioning tabulators, astir had astatine slightest 1 functioning machine.

Critics of Arizona’s voting systems seized connected the tabulation instrumentality problems connected Twitter and blimpish societal media sites, offering them arsenic examples of a request to overhaul the state’s voting systems. One station included a video of a canvass idiosyncratic advising voters of their options and had already been viewed much than a half-million times. It was posted by Tyler Bowyer, main operating serviceman of the governmental limb of the pro-Trump younker radical Turning Point USA. That radical supports in-person voting astatine idiosyncratic precincts connected Election Day, and Bowyer has been captious of the state’s early-voting system.

The problems caught the attraction of erstwhile president Donald Trump, who continues to baselessly refute his nonaccomplishment successful the authorities successful 2020. He noted that galore Republicans decided to ballot connected Tuesday alternatively of casting their ballots by mail. “Here we spell again,” helium wrote connected Telegram. “The radical volition not basal for it!!!”

Online, right-wing influencers besides seized connected the issues. “The hole is in!” wrote the Gateway Pundit, a blog that was a cardinal spreader of mendacious claims astir the 2020 election. “Why are taxation payers wealth being utilized to wage for tabulators that don’t work? Looks similar it’s clip to spell backmost to what worked connected Election day. Paper Ballots & Hand Counting!” wrote an relationship for Diamond and Silk, a drama duo.

Those preemptively suggesting thing nefarious was occurring included Blake Masters, Arizona’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. Masters, who is vying to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), was the astir salient campaigner to amplify the suspicions, coating isolated incidents of mechanical errors arsenic a Democratic ploy. “Hard to cognize if we’re seeing incompetence oregon thing worse,” helium wrote. “All we cognize close present is that the Democrats are hoping you volition get discouraged and spell home.”

Researchers tracking the dispersed of online misinformation said problems with voting machines were among the astir communal drivers of conspiracy theorizing aboriginal Tuesday, with the communicative stretching beyond Arizona and reaching Michigan and Pennsylvania arsenic well.