Phoenix official backtracks after blaming voters for lines

PHOENIX (AP) — Bruce Weiss stewed after waiting 2½ hours in line outside a downtown Phoenix polling place, where juice drinks, snacks and circus animal cookies were handed out by citizens hoping to pacify thousands who turned out to cast ballots in Arizona's presidential primary.

The scene was repeated Tuesday as thousands stood in lines that wrapped around sidewalks at churches, community centers and government buildings after the number of places to vote were cut back as a cost-savings measure.

Waits dragged on as long as five hours in Maricopa County — home to metro Phoenix and 1.2 million voters eligible to cast ballots — but where only 60 polling places were open.

Stanton in a letter to the Justice Department also cited examples of other policies adopted by elections officials and the state Legislature that have created "a culture of voter disenfranchisement."

Three-fourths of the Democratic caucus sites in Utah ran out of ballots, sending workers to nearby stores to print more ballots or voters home to bring back reams of paper or even a home printer at one site.

In addition to drawing the ire of fellow Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Purcell was slammed by Democrats and civil rights proponents, who called the lines the latest sign that the state was making voting for minorities and the poor more difficult.

Teresa Jimenez said she waited in line for nearly two hours in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood on the west side of Phoenix, only to have election officials close the site around 7 p.m. with people still waiting.

Jimenez said the mood in the line was upbeat as voters — many of them Latino — were excited to cast ballots, but that enthusiasm was crushed when the site was closed.

Ducey suggested one way to fix the problem is by allowing independents who make up the largest voting bloc in the state to vote in presidential primaries.