County fumbles another election
Poor Maricopa County. It may have the most voters in the state, but they endure inexcusable election-day blunders. Make that habitual blunders.
Tuesday’s foul-ups were an echo of the 2016 primary, which produced long lines and disenfranchised voters.
Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell lost her job and her replacement, Adrian Fontes, arrived with promises to do better.
Oops.
A “vendor” got the blame for a series of problems that left voters spitting mad Tuesday morning.
Adding to the absurdity of this lessthan-routine day of voting, Secretary of State Michele Reagan tweeted a suggestion that selected polling places stay open later.
Maybe the courts could OK this, she wondered via tweet.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors nixed the extended-hours idea.
Maybe somebody could hang this on Vladimir Putin?
Voters had something else in mind. Reagan was trailing GOP primary opponent Steve Gaynor as results poured in.
Meanwhile, Pima County issued a gloating MEDIA ALERT to say that voting there was “going smoothly,” and was “not affected by the problems that have been reported in Maricopa County.”
But really, people, the primary was being treated like a formality, anyway, in Arizona’s highest profile races — U.S. Senate and governor.
For some time, Republican Martha McSally has been running ads against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema as though the two were unchallenged in their respective primaries for the Senate.
Long before the polls opened — or didn’t open in Maricopa County — the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was emailing news clips about McSally’s lingering Trump problem after a “brutal,” “savage” and “contentious” primary.
It didn’t look all that brutal to me — Kelli Ward’s suicidal tweets notwithstanding.
But apparently the DSCC found news from around the country discussing some bruising battle among GOP contenders McSally, Ward and Joe Arpaio.
Somebody forgot to tell McSally, who ignored her opponents and went straight for Sinema’s pink tutu.
Both McSally and Sinema refused to debate their primary opponents.
Maybe voters will see them go headto-head before the general election — when Maricopa County voters get another chance to play Find Your Polling Place.
Down in Pima County — where I cast my ballot — we may be small, but we’re loyal.
Talk at the coffee shop Tuesday morning ran something like this: “I voted for (Steve) Farley — he’s the hometown boy. I’ll vote for (David) Garcia in November.”
Farley is Tucson’s own. His art graces downtown. His tenure in the Legislature made him a lot of friends, too. After all, it takes guts to try to get something done as a Democrat in Arizona’s Legislature.
But the conventional wisdom (highly caffeinated variety) was that Farley would lose to the more charismatic Garcia, who comes from Maricopa County — where there are more voters, but they have a harder time voting. Garcia lead from early on.
But the Republican Governors Association had put their money on Garcia and began funding attack ads even before Tuesday’s results were in.
You might say: Why bother to have an election?
Especially if you live in Maricopa
County.
In fact, the majority of eligible voters cede their voices to a motivated minority.
Early voting led to predictions that this primary would break turnout records. But the record — set in 2010 — was 30 percent of registered voters. Some record.
It’s unlikely the final figures this year will amount to a majority of eligible voters.
So even if everybody who wanted to vote in Maricopa County had been able to do so uneventfully, this primary would still have been decided by the minority.
Yet there is reason for optimism about this primary election.
This year’s candidates represented a robust diversity, including a Muslim candidate for Senate and a woman in a same-sex marriage running for governor.
There’s also optimism in the number of challengers in safe districts.
In 2016, Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva ran with only write-in opposition in southern Arizona’s super-safe 3rd Congressional District. Not this year.
Three Republicans stepped up to challenge him in a district that has a 23 percentage point Democratic advantage. Nick Pierson won.
Multiple Democratic candidates fought for the chance to challenge GOP Rep. Paul Gosar in the 4th Congressional District, which has a 26-point GOP advantage.
Ditto for GOP Rep. Andy Biggs in the 5th Congressional District, which has a 21-point GOP advantage. Joan Green won.
So there’s hope for our system yet. If only they’d let the people in Maricopa County vote.