When the 2020 presidential election yielded unexpectedly favorable results for Democratic candidates, suspicions were raised. In the most recent Arizona midterm election, however, given prior election problems, scenarios emerged that violated state election regulations.

The campaign of Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was certain that she had enough votes to win, but her opponent surged ahead in the last moments under suspicious circumstances. The state assistant attorney general has responded to Lake’s request for a rerun of the election in Maricopa County in light of the numerous irregularities that occurred on Election Day.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright of Arizona’s Elections Integrity Unit sent a letter to Maricopa County authorities on Saturday, requesting an explanation for widespread ballot tabulation and ballot printing issues during the November 8 general election.

In the letter addressed to Thomas Liddy of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, one of the most troubling issues raised was the apparent mixing of ballots in black duffle bags at at least one polling location, which were successfully run through the on-site tabulators with those placed in “Door 3” to be sent to the Election Department’s downtown Phoenix tabulation center because they could not be read.

“The Elections Integrity Unit (“Unit”) of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (“AGO”) has received hundreds of complaints since Election Day pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County,” Wright opened her letter.

“These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” she continued.

Wright stated that remarks made by Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and Stephen Richer, county recorder, as well as other official communications from the county, appear to indicate probable election law breaches. She recalled that, according to information supplied by the county, the ballot on-demand printers at at least 60 polling stations were wrongly set, preventing the tabulators from reading the ballots.

Voters can check in at any place in Maricopa County, which contains numerous congressional, state, and municipal districts, and ballots are printed on demand.

“Based on sworn complaints submitted by election workers employed by Maricopa County, the BOD printers were tested on Monday, November 7 without any apparent problems,” Wright wrote. Despite these tests, the printers began malfunctioning within the first half-an-hour on Election Day.

In light of this, the AG’s office requires logs detailing when modifications were made to the printer setup, as well as other pertinent data.

Wright was especially interested in the advice poll workers provided to voters whose ballots were rejected by the tabulation devices.

“Following widespread reports of problems at voting locations on Election Day, Chairman Gates publicly stated that voters who had already checked in to e-Pollbook, but were having difficulties voting could ‘check out’ of that voting location, and would be able to nonetheless vote in another voting location,” she wrote.

“Based on sworn complaints received by the Unit, not only have poll workers reported that they were not trained and/or not provided with information on how to execute ‘check out’ procedures, but many voters have reported the second voting location required the voter to cast a provisional ballot as the e-Pollbooks maintained the voter had cast a ballot in the original voting location.” she added.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

Wright pointed out that Arizona state law prohibits a voter to cast a provisional ballot who has already been signed in electronically. Additionally, the attorney noted that state law was also apparently violated when poll workers failed to keep ballots that were successfully tabulated on site segregated from those that were not. CONTINUE READING…