Fontes briefly answers vote-mishap questions
The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office has been tight-lipped on details about election-day problems that left many voters scrambling to find other polling places because their assigned sites weren’t operable.
Recorder Adrian Fontes has refused to answer media questions for more than a week following the Aug. 28 primary election.
On Tuesday, in an unannounced Facebook Live video, Fontes said his team had prepared a report that would answer questions and provide a timeline of the issues that occurred. He promised to release it by Thursday.
But Thursday, he said he would no longer release the report, based on advice from county lawyers. Fontes again declined to answer questions.
Friday morning, after posting a photo on Twitter of himself taking questions from middle-schoolers, Fontes talked briefly with The Arizona Republic.
On election day, polling places were not ready to open at 6 a.m., when voting was to begin. The issue affected 95 precincts and thousands of voters, an investigation by The Republic revealed.
Fontes confirmed this on election day and blamed the issue on an information-technology contractor that he said did not provide the required IT support for the voter check-in equipment. The contractor denies this.
But The Republic received numerous other complaints from voters about seemingly unrelated issues at polling sites, including workers who felt unprepared for their responsibilities, voters receiving incorrect ballots and concerns about the security of ballots.
In the phone interview Friday, Fontes said the other issues were “every-election type of issues” that the Recorder’s Office would have been able to resolve quickly if not for the polling places that weren’t operable in the morning.
“(These issues) usually get resolved pretty darn quickly, and I’m very glad that we have the opportunity to look at the circumstance,” Fontes said.
Poll workers also had trouble reaching the troubleshooters who help resolve these types of issues, Fontes said.
Fontes said voters were confused about the new vote centers that were introduced during the election.
Besides the 450 traditional polling places, the county operated 40 vote centers where any registered voter could cast a ballot, regardless of precinct.
However, Fontes said, those voting at vote centers must cast provisional ballots, which people see “as a bad thing” because in the past these types of ballots weren’t counted unless there was a particularly close race.
That’s not so with provisional ballots cast at vote centers, Fontes said. The new system allows the recorder to count these ballots.
Fontes has faced a barrage of criticism for not releasing the report that he promised would explain the voting issues.
He said the county’s attorneys warned him that releasing it could damage the county’s strategy in possible future legal battles, including a potential breach-of-contract lawsuit with the contractor Fontes said led to the election-day issues.
Fontes agreed to a sit-down interview with The Republic on Monday to answer further questions.
The Republic has requested Fontes’ report and a series of other records under the Arizona Public Records Law. The Recorder’s Office has not yet fulfilled the requests.