Experienced First Hand
(UPDATE: After providing statements to the Arizona Attorney General’s office and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, highlighting my own observations of true voter disenfranchisement as outlined below, nothing whatsoever happened to rectify the faults in the system on November 8, 2022 that disproportionately negatively impacted Republican voters. Despite court cases and the experiences of thousands of voters and the discovery that thousands of ballots every half-hour were being disregarded, the results were allowed to go forward with no run-off election for either the very close AG results or the highly questionable governor results. In reality, somewhere between 30-40% of Republican, in-person voters did not have their ballots counted on election day or afterwards. This is a travesty.)
I would have to say that I am somewhat incredulous that there is such a lack of compassion or support for voters who have experienced true disenfranchisement. For years, I have heard media stories that have suggested hypothetical situations where groups of people may be “disenfranchised” during the election process. These stories purport that those groups of voters could not vote because they would not be in possession of any form of picture ID. Never mind that a person, anywhere in the U.S., would need an ID to cash a check at a bank or fly on any commercial airplane. But to look at reality might require some critical thinking and that is in short supply.
What I saw with my own eyes on election day, November 8, 2022, was true voter disenfranchisement or suppression. It was not hypothetical or vague pronouncements without proof or firsthand experience; no, it was very real.
Beyond my own experience, and subsequent to the election, I have heard of at least hundreds of similar experiences from Arizona voters who voted in person on election day; a practice that is largely Republicans and conservatives. The lack of interest, inquisition or investigation by Arizona media tells me that journalism truly is dead. If it isn’t dead, then it is so replete with biased “reporters,” anchors and producers, that it is nothing more than an extension of one political party. There were clearly events that transpired on November 8, 2022 in Arizona that were not “normal” or reassuring or transparent. Nothing gave any conservative, in-person voter any sense of confidence that the system was working as it should and that all votes would be counted or that all voters would even have the chance to cast a ballot.
Here is what I observed and here is what many others have said of their experiences.
I arrived mid-morning at a very busy polling location that is in a very conservative, Republican area. You could see by the turn-out on election day that this was a location where most people preferred to vote in person. There was a long line that snaked around the large foyer area of a large church. The majority of the people were baby-boom generation.
It was obvious, within 10 minutes or so after arriving, that there was a sense that something was off. There were people exiting the large room set aside for marking ballots who were visibly upset and voicing their unhappiness with what they had just experienced. Most seemed to have waited in vain because their ballots were not accepted in the ballot tabulators.
Then, after about 45 or 50 minutes, when I had moved up about half way in the line, a young 20-something woman, with a backpack, started walking along the line, holding her phone as if she was looking at something, but clearly videotaping those in line. When she got closer to where I was standing, she was telling people that the sharpie-style markers that were supplied for marking ballots would not allow the ballot to be counted.
I spoke with those behind and in front of me, after she had walked by, and pointed out that it was unlikely to be correct since the machines just read/scan the mark and the type of ink would not matter. The man in front of my was visibly concerned and he left. Many other people simply left the line and gave up on even attempting to vote.
When I finally got up to the entrance to the room where voters where checked in and ballots were distributed, there was very obvious sense of annoyance. Several people were speaking to a poll worker after their ballots would not go into the ballot tabulator. They had just waited an hour and a half in line, and now, after carefully marking their ballots, their votes would not be counted. The poll worker was telling them that their ballots would have to be “spoiled” and that they would have to try another polling location to see if the ballot tabulators would work.
Most left, very upset, and were unlikely to stand in a long line a second time. Their votes would never be counted.
It is possible that a third or more of the voters at that polling location did not have their votes counted; maybe half. Of the two ballot tabulating machines, I got into a line for the one that I thought had the better chance to work, at least sporadically. The lady who was working with it told me that I could try to feed my ballot into it, but that it had only worked for some. Thankfully, it gave me a message that my ballot had fed through okay. I just happened to get lucky. The other machine was not accepting any ballots. There were still at least a hundred or more people in line when I was leaving.
Arizona Media Oblivious to Facts
The Phoenix-area media has offered only a continuous monolithic response to any claim of election fraud; it is impossible. The media took this position after there were a large number of irregularities after the 2018 mid-term elections and strengthened its response after the 2020 elections. If those who suffered voter disenfranchisement were in the other party, it would be a top priority of the media to investigate, uncover anything possible and assume that voters were cheated, yet, this impacted Republicans and now the election is over. The media, whether Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS have responded with one voice and one viewpoint. Nothing to see here; move along.
The unsettling thing is to hear hundreds of other voters who were at other polling locations describe their experiences; which were nearly identical. Most believe that at least 30-40% of election-day voters did not have their ballots read or counted. This is not the American way and not something that should ever occur in a first-world country. There may be tens of thousands of voters who were actually disenfranchised and cheated on election day and the media has no interest. On the contrary, the have labeled anyone who points to the many questionable occurrences on election day as “election deniers.”
This is like the difference between hearing a person talk about the increasing crime in an area and actually being the victim of a crime. The former may change your behavior or be a fleeting story; the latter makes it very real. I saw these problems with my own eyes; witnessing both a person who may have been an operative for the other party convincing people to leave the line and not vote and then ballot tabulating machines that would not work and count ballots.
The local Phoenix media’s uniform response is troubling at best. Instead of any journalistic curiosity, they uniformly dismiss the concerns, eye-witness accounts and experiences of thousands of Arizona voters in favor of helping one political party gain more power. There is not even a negligible attempt at impartiality or interest in a fair election, but instead, every effort to capitulate to the talking points of the Democrats.
An Honest Perspective Nowhere to be Found
Every person in America should be concerned with these events and demand a new election in Arizona with very strict scrutiny of the entire process.
Then, there is the issue with critical thinking. Of the two candidates running for governor, Kari Lake was traveling the state and taking any question prospective voters asked. She was available for the Clean Elections governor’s debate, a tradition in the state and clearly outlined her positions on nearly every issue impacting the state. The Democrat, Katie Hobbs, laid low during most of the campaigning season, taking few interviews and refused to debate Lake in the Clear Elections debate. This alone should have been enough to disqualify her in the minds of most Arizona voters. In per campaign ads, her top issue was abortion and she consistently characterized Lake as “dangerous” because Lake is pro-life. How the person who wants to save the lives of babies is more dangerous than the one who wants abortion up to delivery is beyond me.
A person engaging in critical thought would come to the conclusion that Lake was the more qualified to lead the state and protect Arizonans from the increasing crime that has been a byproduct of the open border. A person concerned with keeping tax rates low and the economic health of Arizona intact would vote for Lake as well. Yet, the person who did not campaign or offer any economic vision for the state is said to have won?
The media’s silence and homogeneous response with prescribed talking points feels like the media is in lock-step with those in the White House and fascism has arrived in full force. My “I Voted” sticker seems to hold little meaning anymore and the very act of voting doesn’t seem to have any impact on an election in Arizona. The media continues to claim that the audit of the 2020 election in Arizona found nothing, while it actually did find thousands of voters on the rolls who should not be there. Ballots are sent out to everyone, including my ex who isn’t even a U.S. citizen.
The election process in Arizona is in shambles and Kari Lake and other GOP candidates were very obviously cheated by an election which certainly seemed to be fraught with fraud and deceit and unexplained occurrences that mostly impacted Republican voters. Of course, the media has already marched out the “fact checkers,” who immediately determined that nothing was as thousand experienced and that everything was on the up and up. I guess I need to move to a banana republic to have a better chance at participating in a fair election.
