Pima County’s primary election wrapped up Tuesday with only a few minor problems reported throughout the day, county officials said.
Vote centers experienced an hour-long delay in casting provisional ballots without the proper envelopes needed for the ballots to be cast, while two ballot-on-demand printers experienced technical issues, according to Pima County Communications Director Mark Evans.
Voters who cast provisional ballots between 7-8 a.m. were directed to return later and the correct envelopes were received by 8 a.m., Evans said. He said the missing envelopes were an “oversight” and did not know how many provisional voters had been directed to come back later.
Of the 197 new ballot printers deployed Tuesday, two experienced technical issues — one printer went offline and another had issues with its ink cartridge. Both were replaced with backup printers with “no delay at all,” Evans said.
Tuesday’s election marked the county’s debut of e-pollbooks and voting centers, where poll workers check in voters with an iPad, or e-pollbook, that scans voters’ IDs and confirms their eligibility to vote. The e-pollbook then sends a ballot specific to each voter to a ballot-on-demand printer.
The new voting model also replaces the precinct-based polling system where voters were required to vote at the location assigned to them based on their residence. Pima County voters could show up at any of 129 vote centers across the county to cast a ballot on Aug. 2 regardless of the precinct they live in.
A total of 136,108 votes were counted in the first drop of unofficial results Tuesday night, resulting in a voter turnout of about 22%. The number of ballots left to be counted likely won’t be known until Thursday morning.
“For the most part, most voters were able to check in and get their ballot and vote with no problem whatsoever. We thought it went very smoothly today,” Evans said. “So you know, we plan for the worst. And we didn't come anywhere near those issues.”
The county plans to course-correct for the general election on Nov. 8 by reviewing issues poll workers ran into Tuesday.
“We're definitely going to do a post-mortem on this, get together and say, ‘Okay, where were the hiccups, where are things we could improve our communications?” Evan said. “We expect November to go much, much better, not that today was all that bumpy. But for the little things that happened, we believe those won't be repeated in November.”
The Pima County Board of Supervisors is set to certify official election results on Monday, August 15.
