Maricopa County To Investigate Election Printer Issues

In what might come as good news for Republican Kari Lake, Maricopa County has announced it will investigate the election printer issues that plagued the 2022 November midterm election. The news comes after former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor agreed to lead the independent investigation.

County officials said McGregor will hire a team of experts to find out why the printers that had been working well mysteriously stopped reading ballots properly during the midterms election.

The county became an epicenter of voter integrity issues during the midterms when tabulators in roughly 70 of 223 voting centers had trouble reading ballots. According to the Associated Press, some tabulators did not read the ballots because the printers did not produce “timing marks” dark enough to be detected by the machines. Timing marks inform the ballot scanners of voters’ information so that their choices can be tabulated.

 

Lake, who lost Arizona gubernatorial candidate to her Democrat counterpart Katie Hobbs by around 17,000 votes, sued after election results were announced. Lake argued that election officials worked to disenfranchise voters and that “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election in Maricopa County.”

A judge rejected Lake’s lawsuit, which includes claims of intentional misconduct regarding the ballot printers. Lake is, however, appealing the ruling.

Abe Hamadeh, the GOP candidate for Arizona attorney general, reacted to news of the investigation by saying, “Maricopa County, Pinal County, what else? Democracy demands answers.”

Hamadeh, who also lost his 2022 race, has filed a lawsuit challenging the election results.

Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, was also at the center of controversy in 2020 when Arizona Senate President Karen Fann revealed the number of 2020 general election ballots “do not match” the ballot totals documented by the county.

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