PHOENIX — Many voters wondered Tuesday, whether their votes would count after casting provisional ballots following confusion at the polls on primary election morning.
Provisional ballots are something many are not comfortable with, because traditionally, voting this way doesn’t guarantee a ballot will count.
While some of the primary problems included technical issues like ballots not printing or doors remaining locked at 6 a.m., some voters were directed to other polling locations.
“I feel that something is wrong. It’s unfair and my mind immediately jumps to voter suppression,” voter Laurie Vesco said.
County Recorder Adrian Fontes said the reason why 62 of the county’s 503 polling locations weren’t open by 6 Tuesday morning as scheduled, was the contractor hired to provide the technology only provided about 70 percent of the techs necessary to set it all up.
“It’s terrible that I have to go micro-manage a contractor who guaranteed that they were going to have something taken care of, and then voters end up suffering because of that and for what we’re responsible for, I apologize,” Fontes said.
Fontes admitted in the end, ensuring elections run smoothly was his responsibility.
“It’s a real problem that I’m very sorry for because I did run on that,” Fontes said.
Some of the early birds who tried to vote in person were caught in the confusion and sent to other polling locations.
Vesco said she was told, “There’s one around the corner.”
“They’re telling you, you can go to another place to vote, but we got over there and it’s provisional,” voter Betty Henderson said.
A provisional ballot is something many voters know as one which needs to be verified and may not count.
“We don’t want to do that,” Henderson said.
“… and then I went over there an immediately asked if it was a provisional ballot and they said yes, but they said my vote would be counted,” Vesco said.
“The vast majority of folks voting at vote centers are doing what is called provisional balloting, but that’s going to get counted just like a regular ballot will,” Fontes said.
The Maricopa County Recorder said votes from people caught in the confusion forced to complete provisional ballots will count if they’re eligible to vote.
The County Recorder said with today’s updated system, the verification was completed electronically and ballots were custom-printed for each voter.
People who turned in a provisional ballot can click here to check if it counted.