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But the public isn’t just concerned about speed. They remember 2020, when Maricopa County found itself at the center of national attention due to accusations of mishandled votes and questions about the integrity of the election. Scott Jarrett, Maricopa County’s elections director, pointed out that turnout is approaching 2020 levels. “We are seeing a little bit of a lag of where we were in 2020, but the last few days we’ve actually seen an uptick in turnout. So I am expecting that we will start approaching very close to those 2020 numbers,” Jarrett stated.
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For many, the mention of 2020 brings back memories of an election that saw accusations of fraud and irregularities, especially in key battleground states like Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Maricopa County, which represents 61% of Arizona’s population, was crucial to Joe Biden’s narrow victory over Donald Trump. Biden won the state by a mere 10,457 votes, and Maricopa County played a significant role in delivering that victory.
Fox News famously called Arizona for Biden while people were still in line to vote, a decision that prompted outrage from many Trump supporters. Later, stories of “late-night ballot dumps” that mysteriously favored Biden only fueled suspicions of wrongdoing. Tucker Carlson and others questioned the results, and Maricopa County became a flashpoint for legal challenges.
In 2021, Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, shared his concerns with Breitbart News, noting that unaccounted-for ballots in states like Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin exceeded the margin of Biden’s victory. Von Spakovsky remarked on the troubling issues in Wisconsin, where 6,500 absentee ballots were returned as undeliverable, and 3,000 were rejected without clear reasons. “We don’t know if [the ballots] got lost [or] if they were stolen and somebody didn’t get to vote,” he said.
The concerns don’t end with Wisconsin. In Maricopa County alone, officials admitted to sending 110,000 mail-in or absentee ballots to incorrect addresses in 2020. These were returned as “undeliverable,” raising questions about how many of these ballots were mishandled. Nevada had similar issues, with 93,000 unaccounted-for mail-in ballots in Clark County.
Von Spakovsky emphasized the scale of the issue: “There are literally tens of thousands of ballots out there floating around, and we don’t know what happened to them.” When the margins of victory are as slim as they were in 2020, these unaccounted-for ballots take on enormous significance.
Democrats have been particularly focused on overseas voters, known as UOCAVA voters, as a potential game-changer for 2024. A memo from the DNC highlights the impact these voters had in 2020. In fact, abroad voters played a decisive role in key states like Georgia and Arizona. The memo underscored that just 44,000 votes across three states—Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin—delivered the presidency to Biden.
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With 2024 on the horizon, Maricopa County officials are scrambling to reassure the public. They’ve added more staff and high-speed vote tabulators in an attempt to handle the anticipated influx of ballots. Voters are being encouraged to vote early or prepare for long lines on Election Day.
However, the lingering question remains: Can the public trust this process after the chaos of 2020? As Maricopa County gears up for another contentious election, the delays and the memory of past controversies continue to cast a long shadow over the democratic process.
As we approach Election Day, one thing is certain—many voters will be watching Maricopa County closely, waiting to see if history will repeat itself.
