TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Pima County Elections Director has a plan moving forward for the general election. She just completed a report outlining exactly what went wrong in the primaries and how those problems can be fixed in November.
The August primary was the first election in Pima County with vote centers and electronic poll books. Elections Director Constance Hargrove says that complicated things.
“It will take us a full elections cycle to understand what the needs are for vote centers,” Hargrove said.
Vote centers allowed people to vote wherever they wanted, regardless of their precinct. This meant that each center had to have 1,800 variations of ballots ready to print for whoever showed up.
“You cannot predict where voters are going to show up so you have to prepare for multiples of voters,” Hargrove said.
As a result - one center had to shut down on election day because of issues with ballot availability.
“My concern is if voters were upset or didn’t want to wait that they didn’t get the opportunity to vote,” Hargrove said.
For the upcoming general election, Hargrove says there will be less ballot variations. Her office also now has a better understanding of how many voters will show up at each center. Alongside vote centers, poll workers had to learn to use electronic poll books which can verify voter identity and print a ballot when needed. Hargrove says the new technology had some delays with downloading files.
“Making sure we have those files downloaded earlier, so we start with a clean slate on Tuesday morning, and then monitor throughout the day,” Hargrove said.
But overall, Hargrove says she’s proud of the poll workers. Poll worker Misty Atkins agrees.
“If you watch the integrity they have while they’re working, they don’t let you talk to them, they do exactly what they’re supposed to be doing,” Atkins said.
Atkins says despite any delays due to technical issues, the August election was secure.
“The election workers take their jobs so seriously. It’s their livelihood and it’s their life. I put a lot of trust in that.”
Atkins is a Democrat, we reached out to see if Republican poll workers wanted to comment on the primaries, and never heard back Atkins is also on the election integrity commission. She is one of six people to review Hargrove’s election report on Friday.
This article touches on a few key issues from the election report. Click here if you'd like to see a more in-depth explanation of what happened in the primaries.
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