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Election security in Arizona: Reaction to claims of voter fraud
The end of Sept. 29's presidential debate ended in a conversation over voter fraud.
PHOENIX - Mail-in voting is nothing new in Arizona. While President Donald Trump was speaking about potential voter fraud during the Sept. 29 debate, Arizona's Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was responding on Twitter, saying in all caps, "BALLOTS ARE NOT A DISASTER."
It was hard to hear anything over the shouting match during the debate, but it ended with a heated discussion on election security.
"These people aren't equipped to handle it. They cheat!"
The president said election officials won't be able to handle record numbers of mail-in voting.
"I haven't had any conversations with Trump or his campaign to talk about how we are prepared, but it is not true. We absolutely are prepared," said Hobbs.
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Hobbs points out that the vast majority of voters here have been voting by mail for years.
"78% of voters participated early in the 2018 election, so we have the infrastructure and systems in place to handle the expected increase in the vote by mail for this election."
The president took his concerns a step further.
"I'm urging my supporters to go to the polls and watch very carefully."
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We took that to Scott Jarrett, the director of Election Day and emergency voting in Maricopa County.
"In Arizona, we call them political party observers and in the elections department, we're very open and transparent and we welcome those political party observers to come into our polling locations," he said.
But not just anyone can show up. They need to be appointed by the county political party chair.
"You need a letter that's signed with a wet signature by the chairman for the political party, then we allow one from each party at a voting location at a time," explained Jarrett.
Jarrett anticipates the percentage of those voting online this election will be up to 90 percent. He also stressed they’ve had several elections already during COVID-19 to work out any of the bugs.
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