Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, and Caitlin McGlade

The Republic | azcentral.com

Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell took responsibility for the hours-long lines at the polls Tuesday that enraged voters and had some calling for her to step down over her handling of the presidential preference election.

“We certainly made bad decisions, and having only 60 polling places, didn’t anticipate there would be that many people going to the polling places,” she said. “We were obviously wrong — that’s my fault. So we’ll certainly look at that for future elections.”

But Purcell said she would not step down in the wake of Tuesday's debacle.

"I’m not going to resign," she said, as protesters gathered outside her downtown Phoenix office to call for her resignation or recall. "And the electorate is free to do whatever they want to do."

Hours later, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton issued a request for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation. He pointed out that county officials allocated one polling place for every 108,000 residents and said that Anglo communities had more polling sites per resident.

Voters waited in long lines to participate in Arizona's presidential preference election on Tuesday because of fewer polling sites this year in Maricopa County. County officials earlier this year said fewer sites would be more cost-effective while still accommodating projected voter turnout.

The Board of Supervisors approved reducing the number of polling sites in February on the advice of Purcell, even as the Republican and Democratic presidential primary races across the country were seeing large voter turnout. Despite that, Purcell said she still believed there would be more people voting by mail early than showing up at the polls.

“There were still people who wanted to go to the polls. And I miscalculated on that, and you know, that’s my error."

Purcell said the department was “just trying to do something different for this election, hoping that it would work.” The decision was made after examining the number of people on the permanent early voting list and “just not anticipating the energy, if you will, of this election.”

County officials estimated 95 percent of voters would vote by mail. By Tuesday only 86 percent had voted by mail.

“I was just looking at the statistical history we had when we looked at early ballots," Purcell said. "What it is for these type of elections."

Purcell had a similar reduced-polling-location plan in place for May 17's special election. Voters will decide Proposition 123, the ballot measure that calls for increasing funding to schools by $3.5 billion over 10 years.

In light of Tuesday's long lines, Purcell said she has scrapped that plan and will increase the number of polling sites. She will huddle with her team to draw up a new polling-site plan, which must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

County Supervisor Steve Gallardo said during the board's regular meeting Wednesday morning that money should not be used as a reason to "cut corners."

Purcell has blamed the long lines on confused independents demanding to vote provisionally. Gallardo said that should have been expected.

"I just don't buy that," he said.

See a breakdown of the data so far.

Hundreds of voters were still in line at Maricopa County polling places Tuesday night even as the Associated Press projected Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton as the winners. Some voters reported that they waited more than five hours before casting a ballot.

At least one polling site ran out of ballots, and elections officials hustled them to the site. Independents showed up to vote, leading to a surge in provisional ballots, which don't even count unless the voter was registered as a member of the Democratic, Republican or Green parties.

That was even with 86 percent of voters casting ballots by mail, according to County Elections Director Karen Osborne.

"This was a national news story and the public is owed an answer," said County Supervisor Steve Chucri. "The Maricopa County brand failed."

Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday morning laid blame with election officials.

"Our election officials must evaluate what went wrong and how they make sure it doesn't happen again," Ducey said.

Protesters formed outside the Board of Supervisors meeting in downtown Phoenix, and some community leaders spoke for a news conference.

"This is nothing more than voter suppression," said Devon Del Palacio, a Tolleson Union High School District board member.

About two dozen angry voters, community leaders and elected officials gathered outside the county Board of Supervisors building and the county elections offices to voice their anger. Some called on Recorder Helen Purcell to resign while others called for a “re-vote.” They held signs that read, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Helen Purcell has to go!" and "Re-vote or revolt."

State Rep. Reginald Bolding, a Democrat, said he’s concerned voters were disenfranchised and wondered if it was deliberate.

“No matter if you were Democrat, no matter if you’re Republican or independent, this was not a good process at all,” Bolding said.

Asked if he thinks it was deliberate, he said, “I use the saying 'If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.' ... We also have bills at the state Legislature that makes it a felony to help individuals vote. You would hope that it’s not deliberate, but when you look at everything that’s been introduced, it’s hard to believe it’s not a deliberate effort."

Megan Hitt, 32, of central Phoenix, held a sign saying, "70% less locations for 300% more voters = SUPPRESSION."

She didn’t work Tuesday and showed up to vote at a church near 40th Street and Thomas, where she waited 2½ hours to vote for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. She said there were too few people staffing the site and thinks elections officials had ulterior motives for understaffing and reducing the number of sites. Elections officials have said that is untrue.

“The numbers don’t make sense,” Hitt said. “For two weeks, Super Tuesdays have documented unprecedented voter turnout, and for them to have a 70 percent reduction in polling sites with a 300 percent increase in voter turnout is absolutely unacceptable.”

Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said the organization has received about 50 complaints from voters. The group is reviewing complaints and will submit a request for public information to determine what data county officials used to decide to reduce polling places.

“That’s going to be the best way to gather information about how they made these decisions and where the biggest impact was,” she said. “There were some reports that in some Latino districts, there were no polling places.”