Maricopa County certifies election after irate citizens testify of vote suppression

Following the passionate testimony of poll workers and voters expressing anger and frustration, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to certify their election canvass ahead of a state deadline Monday.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who lost to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs by less than 18,000 votes, according to the official count, has charged voting tabulator and printing malfunctions suppressed the vote on Election Day vote, when most of her supporters planned to cast their ballots.

During the public testimony, a poll observer said that at 7 p.m. on Election Day, when the polls closed, there were 675 people waiting in line at his voting location. Only 150 of those people ended up voting, he said.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative Turning Point USA, said via Twitter that based on the testimony Monday, “it’s very safe to assume” that among 223 polling centers in the county, 200 people per polling center were disenfranchised, a total of 44,600 votes were not. Among those votes about 70% likely voted Republican.

Another poll observer testified that a vote tabulating machine that was found not to be working the night before the election during a test run, nevertheless, was used the next day.

Janelle Weaver of Goodyear, Arizona, said she was volunteering at a poll center at Valley Baptist Church in Tonopah, west of Phoenix, beginning at 5:40 a.m. on Election Day.

“From the start, both tabulators were not working,” she said.

One machine had failed the test the night before, and the other was found to be in order, but it was not working on Election Day morning, she said she was told by poll workers.

Weaver said that Maricopa County had promised to supply a replacement tabulator “first thing in the morning,” but “by the time I left at 1:40, there was not a second tabulator that was working.”

By 7:17 a.m. on Election Day she said, one of the tabulators was working, but it was processing only 1 of 5 ballots.

See a clip of Weaver’s testimony:

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