I don’t think Purcell is a “snake in the grass,” but there were IMHO a lot of people who were in line that were not allowed by whatever rule it is to vote. You had to be registered as a Republican, Democrat or, I think, the Green party to vote. If you were an Independent, you could not vote. That is the law of this great state.
There had to have been a lot of first time voters who were Independents and thought they could vote in the primary. It was well advertised they could not vote in the primary.
Purcell made some mistakes, yes, that is true. The lines were horrendous. My husband and I went to two polling places. There was no possible place to park in either places. We were not able to vote. First time for either of us.
On the way home we both figured it out that the Independent voters were probably to blame. A polling person could have hit the lines and said that Independent voters could not vote, but apparently that did not happen.
My feeling at the time was anger, but proud, that so many people were there to vote. I did figure there would be a line, but not like this one!
So give Purcell a bit of a break here. I may be wrong, but this crowd should have been expected, but it was not.
I was in and out of the voting booth in 5 minutes at 6:30 PM in Maricopa, AZ. There was obviously enough info about independents not being able to vote that my apolitical millennial daughter got the news and switched her registration so she could vote this year. Unfortunately, she registered as a Democrat so she could vote for “Bernie,” but hey, she’s young and stupid. My point is the info was out there and if you didn’t hear about it, you’re really too brain dead to vote.
I know they reduced the polling places by about 70% but based on the historical participation rate, it made sense. Plus they’re always moaning about how hard it is to get poll workers, so reducing the number of polling places made sense in that regard as well. I really hope Helen Purcell isn’t drummed out of office over this. That would truly mean the inmates are running the asylum.