The primary election:

Maricopa County elections officials say voters won’t have to worry about waiting in long lines to cast a vote in Tuesday’s primary. The county has 645 polling places, compared with 60 in March’s presidentialpreference election.

Maricopa County election officials believe Tuesday’s primary will go more smoothly than the March presidentialpreference election because there will be more polling places.

During the March election, voters were stuck in hours-long lines because Recorder Helen Purcell underestimated election day turnout and drastically cut polling sites. She and other officials believed 60 voting centers would be enough because most people would vote early, extra staffing would speed lines, and for the first time, any voter could visit any one of the voting centers to cast a ballot.

They were wrong. The plan left some voters casting ballots past midnight.

For Tuesday’s primary, Purcell is going back to a traditional model employing 645 polling places. All registered voters are assigned to a specific polling place determined by their place of residence. Purcell also plans to provide enough equipment to process two or three lines of voters per site.

That means there will be roughly one polling place for every 3,600 regis-

tered voters, including independents, who are allowed to participate in the primary. In March, there was roughly one polling place for every 24,000 voters registered with a party. Thousands of independent voters were not allowed to vote in that election, but showed up anyway.

Some critics say there should be even more locations on Tuesday, since about 80 polling places will handle voters from more than one precinct.

Purcell said she has tried to find as many sites as possible, but it is difficult to secure locations that meet requirements such as parking capacity and accessibility for voters with disabilities. Some locations refuse to participate because crowds of voters can cause property damage, she said.

“We will continue to try to do that (find more locations),” she said. “We have asked people in these (voter advocacy) groups for their input. If they can find someplace for us, we will certainly go out and evaluate it.”

Arizona State University students who lobbied for a polling place on campus won’t get one during the primary. But it’s possible a new location will be used in November.

What kind of turnout is expected Tuesday?

Purcell said 386,444 early ballots had been received by her office as of early Friday out of 1,038,998 ballots sent.

Based on the number of ballots cast in Maricopa County so far, Purcell estimated turnout Tuesday would be roughly 30 percent of the county’s more than 2 million registered voters. Total primary turnout in 2008 was 21.53 percent and 26.53 percent in 2012, spokeswoman Elizabeth said.

The best times during the day to avoid lines at the polls are from 8 to 11 a.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m.

Voters who have early ballots that did not get mailed in time do not have to wait in line. They can walk inside any polling place to drop them off. Bartholomew

Where can I vote?

Find your Maricopa County polling place by calling 602-506-1511 or going to http://recorder. maricopa.gov/polling place/. Voters outside Maricopa County should check with their county elections office.