Justice Department to investigate Maricopa County in election fiasco

The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice informed the Maricopa County Recorder's Office on Friday that it was investigating how the office handled the March 22 Presidential Preference Election.

County Recorder Helen Purcell and her elections director, Karen Osborne, seriously misjudged voter turnout for the races pitting Donald Trump against Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. After the number of polling places was cut to 60 from a 2012 total of 200, voters waited in line for up to five hours to vote. Some polling places stayed open until after midnight to accommodate voters who were already in line at 7 p.m. when the polls officially closed.

In a letter dated April 1, Chris Herren, chief of the DOJ's Civil Rights Voting Section, asked for information to be turned over by April 22.

Herren asked for:

• A list of polling places.
• Procedures for determining the number and locations of polling places.
• Whether voters could vote at any polling places.
• A complete list of registered voters.
• Data totals on who cast votes.
• Details on staff who manned the polling places.
• Provisional ballots.
• The actual times that polls accommodated the last of their voters.
• Procedures for recording party registration.
• Response to public outcry.

"It's a request for information," Osborne said.

"Throughout the years we've had other requests like this," she said. "We will answer all the questions, we will answer them by April 22, and we will make the response public. That's all I know to say about it."

Purcell and Osborne told the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors last week that they anticipated voter turnout of 23 percent based on the number of eligible voters and the number of early voting ballots. But more than twice as many voters turned out, in part because independent voters were no longer able to participate in the primary election unless they registered as Democrats, Republicans or Green Party members. Snags with mail-in ballots — including candidates on the ballot who were no longer in the race — also prompted more than the expected number of voters to go to polling locations.

The misjudgment triggered protests at the state Legislature and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meetings.

Clinton and Trump won handily, but an attorney representing the Sanders campaign raised questions as to whether his client was cheated of delegates.