Rob O'Dell, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, and Caitlin McGlade

The Republic | azcentral.com

As voters waited for hours Tuesday to participate in Arizona's presidential primary, Maricopa County officials cast the blame for the unprecedented lines and delays on independent voters demanding to cast provisional ballots.

A review by The Arizona Republic, however, found the biggest contributor to the election-day chaos was a decision by Maricopa County officials to reduce the number of polling places as a cost-saving measure.

Only Maricopa County saw long lines to vote in the presidential preference election, as it is officially known, even though the other Arizona counties had similar demands from independent voters to cast provisional ballots.

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The most glaring difference? Only Maricopa County, with 1.25 million voters eligible to participate in the election, severely limited the number of polling sites.

Wednesday morning, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell walked back her blaming of independent voters and said she was responsible for the debacle.

“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.”

In 2012, the county operated 200 polling places for the presidential primary. In 2008, there were 400.

Pima County had 130 polling places on Election Day, compared with only 60 polling places in Maricopa County. This is despite Maricopa having four times the eligible voters for the presidential preference election.

Pinal County operated 82 polling sites for its 98,000 eligible voters. Other less populated counties, such as Apache and Navajo, had about 40 polling places each. Those sprawling northern counties had between 34,000 and 42,000 eligible voters.

Elections employees in other counties surveyed by The Republic said they had not heard complaints about long lines to vote. The longest line outside Maricopa County was a 40-minute wait at the health department in Coconino County at around 4:30 to 5 p.m. Yuma County polls had occasional wait times of 15 to 20 minutes at most, while Pinal saw 10-minute lines at most if there were lines at all.

Despite the long lines, turnout in Maricopa County will end up being less than 50 percent, much lower than officials projected. As recently as Tuesday morning, Purcell estimated turnout would hit 65 percent.

Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell takes blame for voter lines, says she won't resign

Though there were reports of discouraged voters giving up as a result of the long lines, it's unclear how big a factor the lines were in the overall turnout rate.

Other data from Tuesday's voting casts doubt on Maricopa County's original explanation — that it was independent voters casting provisional ballots who caused the long waits.

Arizona's presidential primary is open only to people who are registered with either the Democratic, Green or Republican party. Independents who don't re-register with one of those parties must cast provisional ballots that won't be counted.

As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, 23,000 provisional ballots had been cast in this year’s election. That was down 42.5 percent from the 40,000 provisional ballots cast in 2008, the last time both major parties had contested presidential primaries.

Purcell was asked if she stood by her contention that independent voters were to blame.

“Maybe it doesn’t hold water — that was just some of the feedback I was getting from some of the polling places,” Purcell said. “It does take longer to process a person who is a provisional. ... That’s what I thought was one of the issues, but that wasn’t, you know, all of the issues.”

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved the plan for 60 polling places in mid-February; at the time, Supervisor Steve Gallardo said the county should expect two contested presidential primaries that would draw high turnout.

The county also did not begin publicizing the locations of the 60 polling places until March 9, the day after an election in the city of Tempe.

In February, Gallardo said he was unsure that 60 polling places would enough for one of the biggest counties in the country, especially given this was the first time the county was using regional centers where anyone could vote at any polling place.

“To have only 60 polling places, I don’t know,” Gallardo said. “Maybe it does work. ... Maybe it is the magic number.”

The board voted unanimously for the 60 polling places.

County Elections Director Karen Osborne said cuts to state election funding meant the election needed to be done as cheaply as possible.

“We have had at your direction to try and keep the (presidential) preference election as cheap as humans can do it,” Osborne said. “We have tried to do our best to bring you an election we can afford.”

Pressed on why there were only 60 polling places, Osborne said, “We think it is a reasonable amount, that we have them spread out so most people can get there. We think most of it is going to be by mail.”

Last year, over the objections of county elections officials, the Legislature cut the amount of money for the counties to run the presidential preference election.

For Maricopa County, that meant a $1.9 million shortfall, according to figures compiled by the counties and the Arizona Secretary of State. In February, the county approved an extra $1.1 million for the election.

Elizabeth Bartholomew, communications manager for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, told The Republic on Tuesday that the election change “saves a lot of money." But on Wednesday, she told the paper she couldn't say exactly how much money was saved. In fact, she contended that the cost savings weren't a major reason why the Elections Department made the change to have only 60 polling places.

Early this year, the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey promised to reimburse the 15 counties for their full costs, as state law requires. When the money wasn't immediately approved, the counties were left to come up with their own plans to make the election work.

Two bills to restore the funding are currently stalled in the Legislature.

Chris Roads, Pima County’s registrar of voters, said Pima County had its polling places open, rather than operating fewer, regional centers like Maricopa County did.

This meant that Pima voters cast ballots at their usual polling place and didn't have the option to vote at any polling place in the county — as voters did in Maricopa County. However, the more polling places that are open, the more people who can be accommodated without long wait times, Roads said.

Roads said that independent voters showed up in Pima County, too, demanding to vote provisionally, but he said those voters didn’t translate into long lines there.

“We spent all day dealing with independents,” he said.

Tony Bartz said the long lines prevented him from voting at Hope Chapel in Glendale, near 63rd Avenue and Bell Road. Bartz said he went to that location in the morning before going to work at his financial-services firm and then left work at 3 p.m. to try to vote again, but the line was even longer.

“There was no way I had enough time,” Bartz said. “It looked as if you were waiting in line at Disneyland for a ride. ... It kind of makes you feel like your vote doesn’t count.”

Republic reporter Mary Jo Pitzl contributed to this article.