By Alden Woods | Arizona Republic
Election Day Chandler voting problems
(Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)
Poll workers arrived at the Golf Academy of America, a designated polling place in northern Chandler, around 5 a.m. Everything was ready for voting. Election machines were hooked up and ballots sat waiting.
But poll workers couldn’t get inside. The doors were locked.
Overnight, the building had been foreclosed.
Around 5:30 a.m., Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes tweeted an advisory. “We are advising voters assigned to the Polling Place at 2031 N. Arizona Ave in Gila Precinct to use the Chandler City Hall Vote Center.”
But things were no better there.
“Apparently there’s an issue with the ballots,” Brian Murray, 43, said as he stood in a growing crowd at City Hall. He arrived around 6:15 a.m. and took his place in line. But it didn’t move. Instead he watched as a poll worker came out every few minutes and announced that the printers weren’t working.
Soon after, a wave of voters arrived from the closed golf shop.
“So we’re getting that overflow, too,” Murray said.
Once again, Maricopa County’s election system stumbled out f the early-morning hours. Five of the county’s 503 polling places weren’t ready to go when voting began at 6 a.m., Fontes said. Most were up and running soon after, but voters across the Valley have reported ballot-box glitches: Printers that won’t print, precincts that ran out of ballots and voters who arrived, only to be told to come back later.
