A joint statement from President Bill Gates and Vice President Clint Hickman said Arizona election officials would fully investigate the incident and assured that voter deposits would not ultimately be affected. “All ballots will be counted securely and accurately,” they asserted. An election worker stacks ballots inside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York) “Over the past 24 hours, we have learned more about the printer issue that caused some ballots to not be read at Election Centers yesterday. While the issue affected less than 7% of voters on Election Day (approximately 17,000 ballots), we understand that for people that they went through, this was disappointing, uncomfortable and not what they envisioned on election day,” they said. FIVE KEY FACTS FROM THE 2022 MID-TERM ELECTIONS “We intend to get to the bottom of it,” the duo added. An election worker stacks ballots inside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York) One issue the chairs looked at was the on-demand ballot printers that had previously been used and were working properly during the primaries. “The printer settings for the on-demand ballot printers at the Polling Centers were the same as we used in the August primary. The paper was the same thickness. Before the General Election, the Elections Department printed and tested hundreds of unissued ballots” , the announcement states. ARIZONA 2022 ELECTION RESULTS He continued: “We are committed to finding out what factors changed that led to problems in the 70 Polling Centers on Tuesday. We are grateful to the county technicians who found a solution to the problem by adjusting the printer settings. “The good news is that the election administration has built-in redundancies — back-up plans for when things don’t go as planned. This allows all valid votes to count even if the technology, from time to time, fails. Voters affected by the printer problem had multiple ways to vote yesterday, including dropping their completed ballot into a secure box (port 3) on site,” they also said. “These ballots will be verified as legal and then tabulated at MCTEC. This process is already underway.” ARIZONA official says ‘likely’ REQUIRES POLICY CHANGE Fastest vote count An election official arrives with ballots to be recorded inside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York) The state of Arizona uses only paper ballots and does not use electronic scanners to count ballots, often resulting in delays, such as in Maricopa County. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Once we get past this election, we are committed to finding the root cause of the issue so it doesn’t happen again,” the duo concluded. “And we are confident in the work that still needs to be done to count every vote safely and accurately.” The results of the Arizona governor’s race between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs are still pending. Also, the Senate race between Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican challenger Blake Masters is still pending. The campaigns for Lake, Masters and the Republican National Committee are suing Maricopa County, Arizona, over voting machine issues.
