As the midterm elections are underway in the United States, a video from Maricopa County, Arizona, has gone viral after showing an election official telling Election Day voters that some machines were broken.
The footage has spread on various social media platforms with some users using the incident to spread fear that the election is starting to fill with fraud. The video received millions of views and was initially posted by a Republican activist.
The same Leftist running for Governor in Arizona, @katiehobbs, is the same person in charge of state elections.
— J. Hogan Gidley (@JHoganGidley) November 8, 2022
So...@katiehobbs is responsible for making sure the count is accurate in her OWN RACE.
Wonder why there's been a "Maricopa Machine Meltdown" in conservative areas? https://t.co/zpp1bzDCqJ
Election Day Issues
The clip, which has been largely amplified by right-wing personalities, is what others are calling one of the first signs of election fraud, despite no evidence being shown. An associate professor at the University of Washington, Kate Starbird, who studies the spread of disinformation, said that they expected legitimate mistakes and issues with election infrastructure to be reframed as fraud.
The video footage featured an election worker in Anthem who was explaining the technical issue they were having with tabulation machines that were rejecting ballots. Officials said that they were immediately working on the issue and urged voters who had their ballots rejected to put them in a secure box to be counted after the polls close, as per CNN.
The chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, who is also a Republican himself, said that no one was being disenfranchised. He added that there was no indication of any fraud or anything similar, noting that it was simply a technical issue.
A spokeswoman for the county also said that the poll worker shown in the video did what they were supposed to do, providing voters with the information they needed to participate in the election. Megan Gilbertson added that the man gave voters the options that they had, being calm and transparent about the matter.
According to Fox News, Arizona officials revealed that they were facing technical issues with roughly 20% of tabulation machines. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said that the backup for the issue will function much like early voting functions.
Technical Issues with Tabulation Machines
Gates noted that there were 223 voting centers across the county and said that if one location has longer lines or tabulation machine issues, voters are still able to select another location to cast their vote. The official added that it did not matter where voters went so long as they were registered voters in Maricopa County.
Local officials and election monitoring groups said that despite anxieties and concerns about voting machine failures and potential voter intimidation, the overall voting situation seemed devoid of major problems.
In Florida and Missouri, state officials blocked federal monitors from entering polling sites while in Detroit, Michigan, some voters in the early hours of the day experienced glitches with electronic poll books. They showed people's votes had already been recorded before they cast ballots, said voter protection groups.
On Tuesday, leaders with Common Cause, the good government group, said that there have been no "majorly concerning" issues so far in voting situations across the United States. The group had staffers stationed in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania who said that they were aware of some isolated issues that were quickly addressed by poll workers, the New York Times reported.
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