Voters stand in line at a polling place in Gilbert, Arizona, during the state's March 22 primary. | AP Photo DNC sues Arizona over voter irregularities

The Democratic National Committee will file a joint lawsuit in district court in Arizona on Friday over allegations of voter disenfranchisement and voting irregularities stemming from the state’s March 22 primary.

The DNC will file the suit in federal court along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the state Democratic Party, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick’s Senate campaign and primary voters.


The lawsuit, which will name Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell as defendants, alleges that action taken by election officials is responsible for voters waiting up to five hours in line at polling precincts and that the state arbitrarily rejected provisional ballots, mainly from Hispanic voters.

In Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, the number of precincts dropped from more than 200 in 2012 to just 60 last month. A draft version of the complaint states that the county’s “ill-informed and poorly executed decision … forced thousands of voters to wait in lines for upwards of five hours to cast their votes.”

“The reduction of voting locations was particularly burdensome on Maricopa County’s Hispanic and African-American communities,” the draft says. “This fiasco was the direct result of Maricopa County elections officials’ decision to focus on cutting the costs of the [presidential preference election] by severely reducing the number of polling locations, rather than ensuring that there were a sufficient number of polling locations per eligible voter and that such locations were accessible to minority communities.”

Hillary Clinton handily won Arizona's primary, 58 percent to Bernie Sanders' 40 percent. After the results came in, Sanders' campaign and his supporters were especially livid about the long lines, and suggested they played a role in Clinton's large margin of victory.

Both campaigns announced later Thursday that they would join in on the suit. “We share the concerns of Arizona supporters of both campaigns who encountered barriers and appreciate the DSCC and DNC’s willingness to let us join the case as a party,” Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook said.

“The handling of the primary election in Arizona was a disgrace. People should not have to wait in line for five hours to vote,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. “How many people were turned away? What happened in Arizona is part of a pattern of voter disenfranchisement by Republicans.”

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the lawsuit is “absolutely necessary” because what the state did is “absolutely wrong” but will continue unless action is taken.

“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,” 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.”

The DSCC argued that voting is a basic right no one should be excluded from. “In recent years Republicans have engaged in a clear and systematic attempt to limit access to the ballot box, and what happened in Arizona is only the latest example,” Montana Sen. Jon Tester, chair of the DSCC, said in a statement. “If the concept of fair and free elections is in danger anywhere in our country it must be addressed head on, which is what we intend to do.”

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey slammed his state’s election officials last month for the chaos at the polls, where in addition to long lines, many voters were also turned away — the state held a closed primary, which excluded independents from voting.