Maricopa Official Makes Confession to What Happened on Election Day
Maricopa County Director of Elections Scott Jarrett testified Thursday at Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s election challenge that the county identified multiple locations where the wrong size image was printed on ballots on Election Day.
He further stated he was aware of some ballot printer settings being changed on Election Day.
Hours-long lines developed at many Maricopa polling places on Nov. 8 when ballot printer settings caused tabulators not to be able to read ballots.
Republican National Committee lawyer Mark Sonnenklar testified Wednesday his team of roving lawyers on Election Day found these problems happened in 132 locations.
The county says the printer issue occurred at 70 polling sites.
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Given that Republicans typically vote 3-to-1 over Democrats on Election Day and the 17,000 votes separating Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs, Sonneklar testified, “There’s no question in my mind that had there not been tabulator issues at 132 vote centers, this election would have ended up with Kari Lake winning.”
? Bombshell Testimony from Election Day Attorney ?
“There’s no question in my mind that had there not been tabulator issues at 132 vote centers, This election would have ended up with @KariLake winning.”
Help FUEL our Legal Team:https://t.co/n3390q4MVM pic.twitter.com/Sxa059aM52
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 21, 2022
The problem that the Lake legal team identified after inspecting randomly selected ballots from Election Day versus pre-printed mail-in ballots sent to voters was that a 19-inch image was printed on to 20-inch ballot paper.
Will Kari Lake win her election challenge?
The difference between the two ballots can been seen in how close the bar code was to the edge of the paper and the positioning of the candidates on the page.
These differences apparently made the tabulators unable to read the ballots.
A 20 inch ballot vs. a 19 inch ballot — pic.twitter.com/OSg5w4qu35
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 21, 2022
Lake attorney Kurt Olsen asked Thursday, “Is it your testimony that the printer set changes that led to the so-called ‘shrink to fit’ issue was that done on Election Day?”
Jarrett responded, “That’s correct.”
The county elections official had previously testified that he was aware of these settings changes occurring at three locations.
.@KariLake Attorney Kurt Olson:
“Is it your testimony that the printer set changes that led to the so-called “shrink to fit” issue was that done on Election Day?”
Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett:
“That’s correct.” pic.twitter.com/hDAgiqdXU6
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) December 22, 2022
On Thursday, Olsen directed Jarrett’s attention to his testimony of the previous day when the official said he was not aware of printer settings being changed on Election day to 19 inches.
Jarrett responded that he did not know the exact measurement at issue, saying a fit to print setting resulted in a “slightly smaller” image being placed on a 20-inch paper ballot.
Olsen wondered why Jarrett did not mention the fit to print issue during the previous day’s testimony.
“I wasn’t asked about that,” Jarrett responded. He added that the ballot “definition” was not set at 19 inches.
Director admits that if a 19 inch ballot image was put on a 20 inch paper in the 2022 general election it would be a failure of their election process.
It seems like this is going to come up in the future and he looks nervous to me. https://t.co/Sc8wW8U4NY pic.twitter.com/ZHRWer9L0D
— Gerard F Chavez ~G (@gerardfchavez) December 21, 2022
Jarrett recounted that he learned of the issue during a post-election audit a few days after Election Day. The audit showed what he called “a fit to paper issue” on ballots rejected by the tabulators and placed in so-called “Door 3” for later counting at the county’s central vote headquarters.
Jarrett said the county only identified three locations with the fit to paper issue, though again at least 70 locations, according to Maricopa, or 132, according to Lake’s legal team, had tabulator problems.
Olsen asked if the Anthem polling site was one of the places the county had identified, and Jarrett responded it was not.
In Anthem, north of Phoenix, people in line at midday told The Western Journal they had waited approximately two hours to vote. The wait time was the same around 6 p.m.
Here is the problem w/ what happened in Maricopa County on Election Day. This is Anthem, north of Phoenix at about 1:15 pm. Ruby red district of about 30K people. Only one polling location. Ballot tabulators not working in the morning. 2 hr wait to vote midday and still at 6 pm. pic.twitter.com/CY35yQWwq5
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) November 14, 2022
The Journal also spoke with the polling site director who said the location had experienced ballot tabulator issues in the morning, but they had been resolved midday.
Nonetheless, an employee from our outlet voted there in mid-afternoon and said he had to feed his ballot through five times before the machine finally took. So perhaps the tabulator problems were not completely resolved.
Here’s an example of the problem at a different polling site in the county.
Boom!!! This Ballot “Rejection” Is Caused By Fraudulently Printing A “19” Imagine, On 20″ Paper,” According To “Expert Testimony” During
The Kari Lake Maricopa County AZ Voter Fraud Trial! pic.twitter.com/Ju7Mv6ONVw— Frank Schramm5? (@FrankSchrammJAX) December 21, 2022
Jarrett testified that the county did not direct the printer settings to be changed at the three sites he said the printer image problems occurred.
He further stated that during the county’s ballot test printings prior to the machines being used, no fit to print issues were identified at any of the sites.
But when Olsen asked how Jarrett knew there were no issues, his response was no one reported any back.
“They never identified it during any of the set-ups,” Jarret said.
You can watch the whole testimony below:
It would seem what the site directors would likely be looking for is whether that ballots printed were legible, not whether a 19-inch image was being printed on a 20-inch piece of paper.
On Wednesday, Jarrett testified if that did happen it would be a failure of the election processes in the county.
Jarrett denied that happened, but conceded, “If something like that happened, which I don’t know how it would, yes it would have been a mistake.”
What seems very apparent is that it did happen or something very similar happened.
It was a failure of the election processes, and it did suppress Lake’s turnout, likely by tens of thousands of votes.
The only fair remedy is a revote in Maricopa County.
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