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Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said that the number of polling locations was cut by 85 percent from the 2008 primary and 70 percent from the 2012 primary. | AP Photo Sanders applauds call to investigate Arizona voting delays

Bernie Sanders on Thursday commended the Phoenix mayor's call for a Justice Department investigation into voting delays in the Arizona primary.

In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch sent Wednesday, Mayor Greg Stanton — who has endorsed Hillary Clinton — called the reduced polling locations and long wait times “unacceptable.”

On Thursday, Sanders tweeted: “I'm glad to see @MayorStanton asking @TheJusticeDept to investigate the voting delays in Arizona.”

In the letter itself, Stanton wrote, "Throughout the county, but especially in Phoenix, thousands of citizens waited in line for three, four and even five hours to vote. Many more simply could not afford to wait that long, and went home. This is unacceptable anywhere in the United States, and I am angry that County elections officials allowed it to happen in my city.”

Stanton said that the number of polling locations was cut by 85 percent from the 2008 primary and 70 percent from the 2012 primary.

In the letter, Stanton also said that lack of polling locations was even more significant in minority communities of Maricopa County.

“In Phoenix, a majority-minority city, County officials allocated one polling location for every 108,000 residents. The rations were far more favorable in predominantly Anglo communities: In Cave Creek/Carefree, there was one polling location for 8,500 residents; in Paradise Valley, one for every 13,000 residents; in Fountain Hills, one for 22,500 residents; and in Peoria, one for every 54,000 residents,” Stanton wrote.

“Because of the unacceptably disparate distribution of polling locations, I respectfully request the U.S. Department of Justice investigate what took place in Maricopa County to ensure all voters are treated equally under the law,” he continued.

DOJ spokeswoman Dena Iverson told POLITICO in an email, “We will review the request from the Mayor of Phoenix, just as we review all such requests."

In a fundraising email Wednesday, Sanders sounded off about the wait times in Arizona, writing, "voting should not be this difficult."

"What happened yesterday in Arizona should be considered a national disgrace. I got an email last night from a woman who waited five hours to vote in Arizona. Five hours. And she wasn't alone," the Vermont senator wrote. "Scenes on cable news last night showed hundreds of people in line at 11:30pm in Phoenix — more than four hours after polls closed. Voting should not be this difficult."

"We also know that when there is high voter turnout, we win," he continued.

Sanders warned there could be more voting issues to come, particularly in Wisconsin, where, he wrote, "Governor Scott Walker has also instituted significant roadblocks to voting."

Sanders said there were unknowns coming out of the race but conceded that shorter lines might not have changed the outcome of the Democratic presidential primary.

"We don't know how many thousands of people didn't get to cast their ballots yesterday in Arizona because they couldn't afford to wait that long. We don't know how many people saw long lines at polling places and never even tried to vote, or who were in line to vote and left because they had to back to work, to school, or to their families," Sanders wrote, adding they also didn't know who people would be voting for. "And I don't think that voting problems yesterday in Arizona would necessarily have drastically changed the result for our campaign."

"What we do know is this: we cannot continue to see democracy undermined in the United States of America. Enough is enough," he added.

The Sanders campaign on Tuesday evening questioned the early results in Arizona, citing the long lines in the state. Sanders eventually lost Arizona, 40 percent to Clinton’s 58 percent.

"We’ve seen lines in Arizona" that were "five hours long, literally," campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN as results were still coming in and people were still in line to vote. "So, based on CNN’s calculations and what we know about how many people early-voted, that would mean only 100,000 people came out and live-voted, Democrats in Arizona. I think that that’s just wrong. So I think this race is gonna close up substantially between now and the morning."

A petition on the White House's website urging the administration to investigate voter fraud in the Democratic hit 100,000 signatures on Thursday. Petitions with more than 100,000 signatures in their first 30 days will be addressed by the White House, though the timeline for review isn’t clear.

On Wednesday night, Clinton's campaign counsel wrote a post on Reddit joining in on the chorus of concerns.

"I know that many people have serious concerns about yesterday’s primary in Arizona, and the frustrations voters there encountered while trying to exercise their basic right to vote," Marc Elias wrote. "I share those concerns -- and I know the rest of the HFA team does, too."

But Elias also said that the complications on Arizona didn't come from any of the campaigns and had no role in harming Sanders' chances in the state.

"Some have suggested that this whole thing is a plot to shut Sanders supporters out of the process. This just isn’t true. In Arizona (like most states), county governments administer elections. Neither the Clinton campaign nor the Sanders campaign -- nor for that matter the Trump campaign -- have anything to do with them, beyond being on the ballot," Elias continued. " And the county with the biggest issues last night -- Maricopa -- is run almost entirely by Republicans."

"What we saw last night hurt supporters of both Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton — and anyone who believes in the basic premise that a working democracy doesn’t put barriers in the way of citizens voting. This has serious, serious implications if we don’t fix it before November," he added.