WAPO: Arizona's Primary: Was It Just A Big Mistake? Or Something More Nefarious?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arizona%e2%80%99s-primary-was-an-utter-disaster-but-was-it-just-a-big-mistake-or-something-more-nefarious/ar-BBrb3H0?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCDHPArizona’s primary was an utter disaster. But was it just a big mistake, or something more nefarious?
"We don't know if they were honest mistakes or not, but there's certainly a pattern of mistakes," said Shuya Ohno, director of the Right to Vote campaign at the nonpartisan civil rights organization Advancement Project.
Voting rights advocates say Latino voters didn't want to mail in their ballot because many recalled the bottleneck during 2012's heated election when controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio was on the ballot. People in minority communities waited in long lines, and eventually many had to cast provisional ballots that weren't counted until almost a month later. That same year, the county sent out a Spanish-language announcement that had the wrong voting day on it.
Going back to March 22's election, voting rights activists say they have evidence the poll closures were heaviest in the most disadvantaged areas of the county, like West Phoenix, which has a big minority population. They add they did not find nearly the volume of independent voters officials said there were.
They also argue that Arizona's voting laws don't suggest an openness to minority voters. Arizona's governor signed a bill making it a felony for third-party groups, like nonprofits, to collect and submit early ballots on behalf of voters. It's a move advocates say further discourages minority voters from participating. And Arizona is one of two states that required voters to prove their citizenship when applying to vote (though the courts recently said the states can't require a proof-of-citizenship document for voters registering via a federal form).
This is the first national election since a 2013 Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act meant that Arizona no longer has to review its changes to polling locations by the Department of Justice. Some wonder whether this would have happened if the federal government had a chance to intervene.
The bottom line: No one knows (yet)
People wait in line to vote in at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Phoenix.© David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP People wait in line to vote in at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Phoenix.
Stepping back from the rhetoric, it's unclear what county and state officials would have to gain from trying to disenfranchise Phoenix-area voters. They or their colleagues weren't on the ballot, and you could argue that cutting polling locations by 70 percent would have been a pretty brash and conspicuous way to go about using this election for political gain.
It was also a primary, meaning disenfranchising certain voter groups like Latinos wouldn't necessarily have accrued to Republicans' benefit. The parties were simply picking their presidential nominees, after all -- not casting their electoral votes.
But suspicion will remain until Arizona officials give more definitive answers about what happened. Right now, there's not one person or action that frustrated voters can point to to explain what went wrong. The uncertainty only fuels partisan theories. Plus, there's still the fact that in the United States of America in 2016, thousands of people had to wait in line for hours to vote.
The nation's eyes will likely stay on Arizona for the near future, and not just on the potential legal and political fallout from Maricopa County's botched election: The state still has three
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I'm glad to see the WaPo (of all publications) acknowledging that solely blaming Arizona voting problems on Republicans--is curious.
I just wrote this response in another thread. I'll post it here too. I think we need to start discussing how Hillary benefits from so much of the problems in these elections and caucuses. These problems have become epidemic. Our Democratic primary process has become a crazed shit show.
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I think party is irrelevant here--It bothers me that Hillary benefitted from these problems.
We see clear evidence that the power structure in modern-day US politics is comprised of both Republicans and Democrats who are in bed with the corporations. They're fiercely gripping that power with their collective talons.
Who benefitted from what happened in Arizona? I think it's important to at least discuss that Hillary Clinton was the biggest benefactor. More Bernie voters were disenfranchised, and it appears that Independents who switched to Democratic were hit the hardest. Furthermore, the drastic reduction in polling locations in Maricopa County definitely hit Bernie the hardest. Arizona State University is located in Tempe and is the largest university in the country.
Although these were Republican players Hillary benefitted. At the very least, this needs to be acknowledged and part of the discussion.
It's not extraordinary to ponder collusion here. She benefitted, not the Republicans. In fact, the whole theory that this was done as a "trial run" to help Republicans is ludicrous, in my opinion. This situation alerted everyone to a problem. The problem is being investigated. Changes will most likely be made. People will be on high alert during the GE. No....this benefitted Hillary Clinton.
The media also called the race for her with a very small percentage of the vote in. They did this while people were standing in line.
We don't need to have rock-solid proof to understand that our Democratic primary elections and caucus have been a collective shit storm. All of the chaos, dirty games, disenfranchisement, voter suppression and look at the fiasco that happened in my own state of Iowa.
In 2008, our Iowa caucuses had record attendance. This year--from top to bottom the entire process has been a hell hole. You had rampant cheating in so many locations. Some were caught on videotape. The caucus ended with a .2 margin between Clinton and Sanders. Iowans were finding errors. The head of the Iowa Democratic Party, Andy McGuire is a longtime Clinton supporter (she has the license plate that says "HRC2016"
. She wouldn't even CONSIDER an examination of the caucus results, despite Iowans screaming that they were finding errors in the official counts--that were visible in a PDF on the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) website.
It wasn't until the Des Moines Register wrote a scathing article, "Something Smells in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses" that McGuire was forced to relent and change a few errors. By Sunday, the PDF that was visible on the front page of the Iowa Democratic Party website had been removed. It was no longer visible. This means--no way for Iowans to find additional errors. This was only five days after the Iowa Caucuses!!!! Iowans were just learning that "something smelled" and that problems existed. But there would be no way for Iowans to check the official IDP results with their own precinct results---because the PDF that listed all officially reported precinct results---was gone.
This was the first state primary. My state. You tell me that this is nothing. All a big misunderstanding. A bunch of bad coincidences. You tell me that there is no proof and to just move along. But funny...all of these misunderstandings/coincindences/mishaps and ooopies benefitted Clinton.
How many states, and how many times, do we have to go through this? The common denominator here is the Clinton camp. Never, in the history of our Democratic primaries have we seen so much malfeasance, outright cheating, voter suppression, and unfortunate "coincidences"--all that benefit Hillary Clinton's campaign.
I think it's time to start asking some serious questions about what in the hell is going on!
I saved the link too. Last I checked it was working--but it's nowhere to be found on the IDP website.
I would love to figure out how to put the doc to good use. I'd have to find the Precinct Chairs and Captains from each of the 1,700 precincts in Iowa, then ask them if they remember how many delegates were allotted in their precinct. The findings probably wouldn't be beneficial unless they had taken a pic of the results before handing them in.
If I start now, I should be finished by December. 
But thank you for letting me know that you have this. That was kind of you.
