Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
are each joining a lawsuit being brought by the Democratic National
Committee against Arizona election officials after Democrats say voters
were forced to wait in five-hour lines during the party's presidential
primary last month.
The problem in Arizona was particularly acute in Maricopa County, the state's largest, after elections officials reduced the number of polling places
from 200 to 60 in an effort to save money. Democrats said the polling
locations that were axed were primarily in minority neighborhoods,
disproportionately targeting Democratic-leaning voters.
Reports from the Arizona primary found lines stretching for
blocks and at least 20 individuals contacted the Maricopa County
elections office to complain they were not allowed to vote.
The Arizona primary was what's known as a "closed" primary,
meaning only people who are registered as Democrats were permitted to
vote. Independents and recent party converts, however, should have been
permitted to cast provisional ballots elections officials are supposed
to examine later to determine whether the ballot was legally cast and
included in the final tally.
Elections officials attributed part of the long wait times to confusion among poll monitors over the rules.
Clinton handily defeated Sanders in Arizona,winning 58
percent of the vote. The Sanders camp complained bitterly in the wake of
the voter irregularities that the long lines contributed to Sanders'
lopsided defeat.
Representatives for both campaigns have since agreed there
were massive problems with election administration and said they wanted
to join the lawsuit to correct the problem before the general election.
"Republicans are using every tool, every legal loophole and
every fear tactic they can think of to take aim at voting rights
wherever they can," DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.
"And what they're aiming at is clear -- they want nothing less than to
disenfranchise voting groups who are inconvenient to them on Election
Day."
Elections officials in Maricopa County have acknowledged
their mistake in drastically reducing the number of polling places open
to the public. Afterward officials said they had based their decision on
the state's new early voting policy, which they thought would reduce
Election Day traffic, and low turnout during the last Democratic
presidential primary in 2012.
Maricopa County officials denied the decision on which polling locations to close was based on racial bias.
The DNC, the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, the Democratic
Senate candidate Ann Kirkpatrick and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee plan to file the lawsuit in federal district court in Phoenix
on Friday.
It names Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, the
Maricopa County board of supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder Helen
Purcell, a Republican, whose office actually oversees the administration
of elections.
"Helen's career has been focused on trying to make voting
easier and more accessible. There was absolutely no way she tried to
make it harder for voters to vote or to suppress anyone from voting,"
Elizabeth Bartholomew, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Recorder's office, told CNN.
"At the end of the day, it was just a huge miscalculation and a
mistake. And we're moving forward and making changes to make sure that
that never happens again."
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