Posted on 11/04/2020 6:37:29 AM PST by USA Conservative
There has been quite a bit of speculation on whether voters should have used Sharpies to cast their ballots in Maricopa County.
Social media posts being circulated in the Phoenix area are saying that if anyone used a Sharpie to fill out their ballot, their votes could be tossed.
We received several messages on Election Day and into Wednesday that many polling places offered Sharpies to those voting in person. However, there were reports that some Sharpie-filled ballots were not counted, while others who used ballpoint pen had no issues.
Video of voters complaining about poll workers handing them sharpies instead of pens:
To set the record straight, Right Journalism spoke to Erika Flores, spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department.
Flores said voters can use one of three types of writing utensils to cast their ballots:
Black pen Blue pen Sharpie
You read that correctly. Sharpies are allowed. That’s because the new tabulation equipment counts votes in a such a way that bleed-throughs are not a problem.
Not only are Sharpies accepted when filling out a ballot in Maricopa County, but they are also preferred. That’s because Sharpies have the fastest drying ink.
The one color you do need to worry about is red ink. The tabulation equipment can’t read red ink.
Election judges are now instructing voters to dab the sharpie vertically once to prevent bleed through. Regardless, there have been no issues reading ballots filled out with Sharpies. Even if a Sharpie did create a large ink blot that made the ballot difficult to read, there is a process in which a judge reviews the ballot to determine the voter’s intent. The same process occurs if a voter circles or underlines the candidate.
Sharpies with the same ballot paper were used in the primaries too, but no issues were reported then, officials said.
So officially this isn’t voter fraud.
We use Sharpiea and have been using them for years
Yeah. this article is just noise.
In other words, about average for 'USA Conservative'.
I early voted and we got sharpies. Don’t think it’s a fraud.
How does the counting machine treat a Sharpie tabulated ballot? Does the machine accept the Sharpie ballot just as it does a ballot marked by a pen? Or does the machine route the Sharpie ballot to a special pile to later be audited by a poll worker? The article said that underlined or circled ballots were audited and the poll worker needed to decipher what the voters intent was. How did these ballots get called to the attention of the poll worker? Perhaps the blots from the Sharpie suffered the same fate. They fell into the hands of the human poll worker with his/her own preference.
If so, then the ballot is subjected to the whims of the poll worker. If this is the case, then this is an opportunity for fraud to happen.
lol everywhere Trump supporters whine about voter fraud only this article reveals the truth!
They should stop whining this isn’t a voter fraud.
Sharpies are allowed.
It might have a voter fraud somewhere else but in this particular case there isn’t
My voting place in PA provided thick black Sharpies in each booth to fill out the ballot with.
I brought a Flair with me, because I didn’t feel like touching a potentially contaminated pen, so I used that.
Its not about Sharpies being used on the ballot...its about corrupt poll workers and election officials handing out Sharpies (which are allowed) then disqualifying ballots because a Sharpie was used. That is clearly election fraud on the part of the officials, not the voter.
21 years and still not reading the article
That’s what we use here in rural MO and last night, we got to keep them because covid
They just wiped ours off.
I think the point was missed: it wasn't the about the sharpies being used, it was about the sharpie vote NOT being counted. Yes?
What evidence is there that sharpie votes were not counted? This sounds like nonsense.
Yea if the machine can't read a ballot it goes to be hand counted and the 'intent' of the voter is established. A sharpie mark would clearly establish intent.
“21 years and still not reading the article”
I am old enough to remember when office copiers could NOT read anything in blue ink....
Sharpies work just fine and even if they didn’t, “unreadable” ballots are not discarded.
“A damaged or unreadable ballot must be duplicated,” and outlines the procedure to do so. Such ballots are duplicated by a Ballot Duplication Board, which is composed of “at least two members who are registered voters not of the same political party.”
https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/did-arizona-poll-workers-give-out
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