Election Eve Nightmare

Can the Maricopa County Elections Department ensure the accuracy of early voting? Hell No!

John Dougherty

With less then three weeks before the general election, I have serious doubts that whatever "official" results the Maricopa County Elections Department posts will be an accurate reflection of what voters intended.

After a week of investigating the department's mishandling of last month's controversial recount in the District 20 state House of Representatives race, I won't believe the results of any election in this county if the contest is within a couple of percentage points.

There is just too much slop in the current system to have any confidence in the winner of an election closer than this.

My concerns over the accuracy of Maricopa County's election numbers result from the widespread and popular use of mail-in ballots. I have discovered ample evidence that the county elections department is covering up serious shortfalls in its ability to accurately count such early mailed-in ballots.

The uncontrolled circumstances of voting at home plus the wide variety of writing utensils commonly used to mark ballots greatly increases the likelihood that early ballots will be misread by the county's optical scanning machines provided by the Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, Incorporated (ES&S).

Major problems with early ballots were first exposed in District 20 when 489 new votes suddenly appeared during the recount. The dramatic increase in the number of new votes -- nearly all of which (464 votes) came from early ballots -- stunned the candidates and election experts.

[...] Not only does the Maricopa County department of elections face serious technical issues concerning the accurate counting of early ballots, I have found several other troubling issues stemming from the District 20 recount that suggest more widespread problems including:

Read More >>