Pinal County officials say ballot mishap fix working, ready for primary

MARICOPA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - More than 60,000 voters in Pinal County will be filling out two ballots for the primary. That’s because the county admits it made a mistake, putting either the wrong races or not including some races. It impacts seven cities and towns.

“It was kind of a mess and confusing at first,” Jacob Romrell, a Maricopa voter, said.

“First time I’ve ever seen or heard anything like that,” Gary McElroy III said.

Last month, the county acknowledged they’d messed up. In order to fix the problem, officials sent out a second supplemental ballot. Those impacted are in Maricopa, Superior, Casa Grande, Eloy, and Mammoth, along with parts of Apache Junction and Queen Creek.

“The only thing we can do at this point is to own up to the mistake we made and do everything we can to correct that error,” said Kent Volkmer, Pinal County Attorney. Volkmer couldn’t tell Arizona’s Family what caused the problem, only that their focus is on the Primary and General Election.

These supplemental ballots went out a couple of weeks ago. Volkmer said additional resources will be in place. “We’re going to do everything we can to have plenty of people there, we’ve got some volunteers but mostly paid participants, that are coming and working polls,” Volkmer said. “I do know there are some people who still don’t know. I mean we’ve done everything we can , unfortunately, it’s not reached a hundred percent of all people,” he continued.

The county insists the voting machines will know what races to read and what not to. Separate ones will be used to count the supplemental ballots. “Things happen so it’s unfortunate that it happened, but I think the fact that they able to pull together and get another ballot out really quickly, I think they should be okay with it,” Romrell said.

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