The primary race for presidential nominations continues to be filled with accusations of incompetence and illegal behavior. Even though the Democratic primaries in Arizona are not finished, legal action is already being discussed because of the many things that have gone wrong in Arizona today. After countless Arizona citizens were turned away from the polls, lawyers are making an inquiry into the entire voting process.
At first, the issue merely seemed to be poor planning. Many of the polls were in odd locations and were understaffed, so voters ended up having a wait time of over four hours before they could vote. Sadly, many voters ended up being unable to vote because of the insane weight times. Many of the voters who managed to actually get into the polling location were then turned away because they were told that they were registered as Republicans or independents, even though they knew that they had registered as Democrats.
Many people are questioning whether the polls were set up to fulfill an intentional agenda. For example, Maricopa County is a large, conservative county in Arizona, while the more liberal Pima County is a quarter of the size. However, tiny Pima County somehow had twice as many polling locations as massive Maricopa County, which limited the number of more conservative Democrats who were able to vote. According to reporter Joe Dana, Maricopa county had 500,000 more voters in this primary election, yet their number of polling places was inexplicably reduced from 200 to 60.
For the people who were suddenly told they are not registered Democrats, some polling locations handed out provisional ballots. Currently, these ballots are not going to count in the Arizona primary election. However, if legal action is taken and it is shown that some voters were unjustly told they were not registered as Democrats, then these votes may end up counting after all. Currently, many people are baffled, and lifelong Democrats are wondering how they ended up being officially registered as Libertarian. Many people are taking to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to share their outrage after they were not allowed to vote.
Enrique Gutierrez, the lead communications director for the Arizona Democratic Party says that the party is working to fix the mistakes and ensure that everyone’s votes are counted. Currently, it is unclear if the issues at the Arizona primary are due to incompetence or a deliberate strategy to disenfranchise certain voting demographics. Popular Democratic candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, is encouraging voters to continue monitoring the situation in Arizona, and hopefully it will improve now that so much attention has been called to the problems. As more information comes to light about the Arizona primaries, it is possible that the election may swing towards another candidate.