Posted on 03/24/2016 9:11:03 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Hours-long waits for some Arizona residents wanting to vote in the presidential primary have led to accusations of voter suppression from Democrats and civil rights proponents who cite a decision by elections officials to slash the number of polling places this year.
Residents in metro Phoenix have been bristling for years over a perception that state leaders want to make it harder for them to vote, and the mess at the polls Tuesday only heightened their frustration.
Republican lawmakers passed a series of measures in recent years aimed at cracking down on voter fraud, but opponents believe the changes were merely ploys to stifle Democratic turnout.
Those battles are being waged again after people waited in line for five hours to vote in some places.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
They couldn’t get their illegal alien voters out of bed and into line before the polls closed. Don’t be blaming the people running the polls for that. I was at the polls at 7:00 am. Spent all of 5 minutes there voting.
We had the same kind of thing here in Wichita. There are around 350k people here, and we only had ONE polling place in the entire city for the caucus. And if you wanted to vote, you HAD to vote at the caucus. I asked if I could go to the electors office on Monday to vote because I couldn’t stand in the lines that long (am disabled) and was told NO.
I went home for a couple of hours in the hope that the lines would shrink a bit. You had to be IN LINE at 2 pm because then they wouldn’t let anybody in the line to vote after that.
When I went back, I brought a folding chair to sit on and that’s when the nice Cruz supporter told me to go to the front of the line. I did, but I still had to wait another hour.
I have NO idea of what to expect during the general election, and especially THIS year.
I felt like things were made harder here, too. I saw all kinds of ways that could have made things much more efficient.
This is bunk. I voted in Arizona and, yes, the lines were long, but the the time it took to check in each voter typically took only a few seconds— they scanned your ID, checked the computer screen for your affiliation, and handed you a ballot. Since the ballot only included the presidential vote, the voting itself took even less time than that.
Something tells me that this is more like “Arizona Democrats who voted for the guy who lost”.
Not only that, but we have absentee ballots available in Arizona. No excuses.
This is BS.
And the polls stayed open until every person in line had voted.
Long lines for voting, especially those longer than three or four hours, provide a mechanism ensure that only the most committed and thoughtful voters actually vote. At the same time, the hours long voting lines discourage those who may not committed to voting or to our country.
We would have much better elected officials all voters had the dedication and wherewithal to stand in line five hours to vote.
What are these demoncraps complaining for? Don’t they know that they are gonna have to stand in way long lines for all the free stuff Bernie is promising to give them?
Yup! Absentee ballots as well as “early voting”. Nobody has an excuse.
We would have much better elected officials all voters had the dedication and wherewithal to stand in line five hours to vote.
Agreed, bearing in mind that perhaps some provisions should be made for dedicated legitimate voters who might have physical hardships/medical issues.
Oh, they can’t let that out of the bag just yet.
All of the Bernies were gone on spring break. LOL!
They need to get rid of dws, and we need to get rid of Ryan.
It didn’t help that AZ. election officials eliminated two thirds of the polling locations, and that the voter turnout was way more than what turned out for the 2012 election.
The demand for early ballots was tremendous. One report was that there were 900,000 early ballots requested.
Independents came out in droves only to find out that it was a closed primary.
What else?
It appears to be a bad decision that might be more accurately described as incompetence.
MSLSD’s Rachel Madcow, did her best to blame it on intentional disenfranchisement of the low income voters, by evil plotting Republicans. pft!
Funny, only 10 years ago, I voted in a mid-term election and at the end of the day no less, my ballot was accepted by the machine and told me I was the 43rd voter that day... I thought man what a waste to have a polling station set up that only took in 43 votes. Then 2 years later, for the first time, I had to wait in line to vote... Against Obama!
I live in a heavily Latino and mostly Democrat part of Phoenix.
Shortly after that election we got a notice that our polling place (a 5 min. walk from my house) was being closed and I would have a 10 min. drive to get to the new one. I said to hell with that and signed up for vote by mail and never looked back.
As for Independents thinking they could vote, from what I keep hearing that must be only Democrat leaning indy’s? I know I was ready to dump my Republican card when I heard we passed a law to have open Primaries... I did some simple research (which is tough on many people now days because it requires some basic reading comprehension) on the secretary of states website and read that yes indeed the primary is now open and independents can go ask for either ballot during the August primary, but it also referred you to a link for the new presidential preference election in March would be closed and you had to be a member of a specific party to receive their ballot, that is the only reason I am still registered republican, I wanted a voice in this past election.
Voting should be done on a Saturday with an 8 hour window Friday for seniors and handicapped. People should go over their SAMPLE ballots beforehand. You can’t prevent stupid.
Why is it Democrats have so many problems voting?
If they can’t cheat, they complain.
I can’t read a ballot, I can’t get to the polls, I don’t want to show my ID.
GFY Democrats.
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