A lot has been said about election integrity in the past few years. It’s been a divisive topic because the people who challenge election results are often the losers. The winner’s “side” can’t reconcile the fact that maybe, just maybe, their candidate didn’t win, so they embark on a quest of sheer cognitive dissonance, not caring that they, too, are disenfranchised by an election devoid of any shred of integrity.

They scream, “Grifter! No evidence!” They mock those who attempt to ensure one of our most sacred rights is protected for all people. The movement to “fix” our election issues knows that when fixed, everyone’s vote will count. I am consistently stunned at the vitriol with which the “other side” attacks those who seem to care more about their attacker’s vote being counted than the person doing the attacking does.AThe 2020 election aside, I don’t think another election in modern history has been so transparently broken/stolen/mismanaged to the point of utter chaos than the Arizona midterm election in 2022. It was so clearly a mess that to deny such, in order to proclaim “there is no evidence, and a judge said so too!” you must literally twist yourself into a pretzel and bury your head in the sand. I will review just a few of the most egregious issues with the hopes that this may serve as a resource for those who still give a damn about living in a free country. This isn’t detailed or even fulsome; however, our more detailed reporting is linked throughout.

Improper Ballot Image Size and the Curious Case of the Heat Maps

In 2022, there were serious technical issues for voters. The majority of these issues occurred across Maricopa County, a county that represents 62% of the total population of the state. On election day, reports began flowing in that people could not get their ballots to scan once they voted. Arizona has print-on-demand ballots, so voters can go to any voting precinct, provide their address, and get the ballot representing their area. There were 7,000 ballots rejected by the machines every HALF HOUR in Maricopa County from 6-8 PM, never mind the rest of the day.

Voters were assured that their ballots would be counted if placed in a separate drawer. We later learned through election workers’ affidavits that no suitable procedure was followed to ensure those ballots were treated properly. We also learned that 19″ ballot images had been printed on 20″ paper, a problem the county knew about and was allegedly investigating, as it had also happened in the previous two elections.

The County supervisors didn’t tell anyone they were aware of this issue and were in the midst of a root cause analysis to figure out how it happened. They kept that from the public.

So, thousands and thousands of voters cast their ballots on 19″ images printed on 20″ paper. Those ballots needed to be duplicated to proper sizes and scanned to be counted. We later learned that Robert Jarrett, the elections director, could not produce a SINGLE duplicated ballot, and none of the processes was followed to have those duplicated ballots attached to the original. We learned that only because Kari Lake was granted the ability to have an expert (Clay Parikh) spend just a few hours at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) and look at certain batches of ballots.

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