The Arizona Republic

Election officials: Sharpies, felt-tip pens OK

Reassuranc­e comes after questions from the right

- Rachel Leingang Reporter John D’Anna contribute­d to this story. Reach reporter Rachel Leingang by email at rachel.leingang@gannett.com or by phone at 602-444-8157, or find her on Twitter and Facebook.

As the presidenti­al election and several other races in Arizona remain close, election officials stressed that voters’ ballots will be counted regardless of what kind of pen they used.

The reassuranc­e comes after unfounded claims from some on the right about whether ballots filled out with Sharpies or other felt-tip pens will be read correctly and counted by tabulation machines.

Elections department­s across Arizona said there was no controvers­y and that they have processes in place to ensure ballots are counted regardless of what kind of utensil is used to fill them out.

Still, the office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, asked questions of the Maricopa County Elections Department in a letter on Wednesday, saying it had received “hundreds of voter complaints regarding the use of Sharpie brand markers” at voting centers.

The Maricopa County Elections Department says voters can use black or blue ink or Sharpies to fill out ballots. Their new tabulation machines this election, which were tested many times, will count ballots with these types of pens.

Additional­ly, concerns over a Sharpie bleeding through a ballot in Maricopa County should be alleviated by the ballot itself being offset, meaning it would not spoil a vote on the other side of the ballot, the county said in a video on Twitter explaining the use of Sharpies.

The county preferred Sharpies at vote centers because they dry quickly. Ballpoint ink can smudge onto optical readers or other ballots, creating issues, the county said.

Voters can check the status of their ballots beballotre­ady.vote.

At a polling place in Queen Creek on Tuesday, a plaincloth­es Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputy was sent to investigat­e and found that a woman was handing voters ballpoint pens with a flyer urging them to not use Sharpies. The woman was told to stop and agreed to leave. The spokeswoma­n said new optical reading equipment was brought to the site to ensure ballots were read correctly.

Pima County called the felt-tip pen controvers­y “unfounded” in Twitter posts on Wednesday. In that county, felt-tip pens are discourage­d because of potential to bleed through the ballot. Again, this is not the case in Maricopa County this election because the ballots are offset from front to back.

“All ballots in which voter intent can be discerned will be counted. That’s also in the manual. No ballots will be discarded because of the method used to color in the ovals,” Pima County officials wrote on Twitter.

What if ink bleeds through ballot?

If a felt-tip pen mark does bleed through on an early ballot, the ballot likely gets sent for duplicatio­n, meaning an elections worker will fill out a new ballots using the voters’ choices that will be properly read by the tabulation machines, according Pima County, which referred to the elections procedures manual.

Maricopa County Elections Department spokespers­on Megan Gilbertson said the county ballots previously required voters to fill in an arrow, which could bleed through using a Sharpie and lead to an overvote on the other side of the ballot.

Gilbertson said when a person votes in person and runs their ballot through a tabulator, it will alert if there is an overvote and push the ballot out. The voter can choose to spoil that ballot and mark a new one, or decide to maintain the overvote.

It is now an oval, and the ballot is offset, meaning it wouldn’t bleed through to the back side, she said.

Sharpies dry fastest, the county found through lots of tests of their processes, she said. Other inks could leave smudges on the mylar film that reads ballots and affect other ballots, she said.

“We did extensive testing on multiple different types of ink when we new these new precinct-based tabulators and our vendor approved the Sharpies as the fastest drying ink and the best ink to use,” Gilbertson said.

Safeguards and testing ensure votes are properly counted, Gilbertson said.

“All of our tabulation equipment, including our precinct-based tabulators, are certified for accuracy by state and federal agencies, and we do a logic and accuracy test before and after each election so voters can be sure that that equipment is verifying those votes and counting them,” she said.

Arizona Secretary of

State

Katie

Hobbs told Fox 10 in Phoenix that voters should rest assured that ballots will be counted properly.

“A trained, employed polling place worker is not going to give you a pen to mark your ballot that is going to invalidate your ballot,” Hobbs said.

AG’s Office asking questions

Still, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said he has asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to look into the concerns.

The office wrote a letter to the Maricopa County Elections Department asking questions about the situation.

“Voters are concerned that the use of Sharpies may have caused ballots to be rejected, spoiled, or cancelled,” Deputy Solicitor General Michael S. Catlett wrote.

There isn’t evidence to confirm whether this has happened to voters yet. Hobbs clarified on Twitter that voters may be seeing their ballot status online as “canceled” because they received an early ballot but decided to vote in person instead.

“Canceled” in this case means their early ballot was canceled so their inperson ballot could be counted, she said.

In the letter to Scott Jarrett, the county’s director of election day and emergency voting, Catlett asked for answers to:

● Which vote centers made Sharpies available

● What extent Sharpies were used at these sites

● How many ballots cast at each vote center were rejected and whether they were rejected because of overvotes

● Whether tabulation machines were programmed to reject overvotes

● How many ballots were spoiled onsite so the voter could vote again and

● What the process and meaning were for a ballot appearing as “canceled” on the Secretary of State’s website.

 ?? MARK HENLE/THE REPUBLIC ?? Maricopa County Elections employee Alba Parra tabulates early ballots Wednesday at the Maricopa County Elections Headquarte­rs in Phoenix.
MARK HENLE/THE REPUBLIC Maricopa County Elections employee Alba Parra tabulates early ballots Wednesday at the Maricopa County Elections Headquarte­rs in Phoenix.

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