Isn't part of the AZ policy also that you are allowed to vote at any location?
The open polling place was something they implemented for this Presidential Preference Election because they had decreased the number of polling places so much. It
was convenient that I had options for places to vote, but each of those places was miles away rather than within walking distance like it was for the midterms in 2014. And of the three closest sites that their website provided for my address, the first two (a police substation and a church) were so overrun they looked like a house party gone out of control. People were parked in front of dumpsters, on the grass, on the sidewalk. It took 20 minutes for me to drive
thru the parking lot of the church, because I realized I wasn't going to try and park there but I was already stuck in the line of cars.
I finally went to the polling place at the community center near the public library and it was an hour and a half wait in the mid-afternoon/early evening with a line that at least tripled by the time I had left. I'm certain there were a number of independent voters who had shown up to vote who were not told at any point before entering the building that they would only receive a provisional ballot, and various people who canvassed the line for signatures for congressional candidates did nothing to dissuade them from being there. Finally, three days after voting, last Friday, I received my early ballot and polling place directions in the mail.
It was a colossal fuck-up. It wasn't necessarily motivated by partisan concerns (at least, not entirely).
From the Maricopa County Recorder's website
2004 Presidential Preference: 77% In Person, 22% Early Ballots
2008 Presidential Preference: 41% In Person, 59% Early Ballots
2012 Presidential Preference: 20% In Person, 80% Early Ballots
Plot those data points on a graph and take them to someone who doesn't know any better and they'd say "oh well, we're gonna need two polling places and a lot of mail carriers, then." Yeah, that'd be a dumb thing to do, but if you're also trying to save money maybe it looks like the least dumb thing.
Now,
where they closed those polling places is where you get into the real partisan bullshit, as there were some largely minority communities with absolutely no polling places. To people living in Guadalupe, a tiny area nestled between college town Tempe, South Phoenix, and affluent Ahwatukee, there were no polling places around for miles (the three I traveled to were the closest to them too, actually) and, public transportation to those polling places from Guadalupe would have required multiple transfers. It constituted a very real burden simply to
get there, let alone the multiple hour wait.
