Maricopa Board of Supervisors Canvass

The Board canvassed on Monday– certifying the election results. Protestors showed up to participate in the public comment availability to lodge their comments that the election results should not be certified. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates spoke about the occurrence.

“It was very important to my colleagues on the board and I that we hear from folks. We gave whoever showed up two minutes to speak, and when that was all done, we had the presentation from the directors of elections. We did vote to certify the canvass,” Gates said.

The vote to certify was unanimous. Many people spoke negatively about the Board, which is their right, Gates said.

“But it does concern me that people would get into the sort of discussions that they were. A lot of them made references to religion and things like that. And I understand they feel very strongly about that, but we had a job to do, and that’s what we did on Monday,” Gates said.

People continue to say these things and speak negatively because that is what they are being fed from various leaders in the community and nation, according to Gates.

“I think a lot of those people are good folks who are simply misdirected. And that’s why I’ve called on a lot of my fellow Republicans to push back on this and speak the truth. And now we’re starting to see that it’s impacting Republicans electorally because Republicans aren’t pushing,” Gates said.

Concerning the issues with the printers on Election Day, “we’re still doing a deep dive to determine exactly what happened. But basically there were some technical issues with the printers that were causing the timing marks, which is how the tabulators read the ballot, they were coming out too faint,” Gates said.

It was not a perfect election, but the key to remember is that no one was denied the right to vote, according to Gates.