Maricopa County, Arizona, Supervisor Bill Gates apologized after roughly 20% of their polling sites had problems with tabulation machines reading ballots just hours after Election Day polls opened.
The Arizona county had explained that some machines had problems with their printers and were not producing dark enough ink on ballots.
During a Wednesday news conference, Gates said that of the approximately 250,000 in-person votes that were cast on Election Day, “the lion’s share” have been counted and reported, but 7% — or about 17,000 ballots — were placed in a drop box and had still not been counted due to the printing errors.
Gates rejected the idea that there was any criminal activity afoot or any other foul play, but acknowledged that “yesterday was not a perfect election.”
B.C. Begley 