Name: Sharpies and felt-tip pens on Arizona ballots won't disqualify votes, elections officials say
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Sharpies and felt-tip pens on Arizona ballots won't disqualify votes, elections officials say

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Arizona RepublicView CommentsAs the presidential election and several other races in Arizona remain close, election&nbsp;officials stressed that voters' ballots will be counted regardless of what kind of pen they used.Elections departments across Arizona said there was no&nbsp;controversy over Sharpies and&nbsp;that they have processes in place to ensure ballots are counted regardless of what kind of utensil is used to fill them out.Still, the office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, asked questions of the Maricopa County Elections Department in a letter on Wednesday, saying it had received “hundreds of voter complaints regarding the use of Sharpie brand markers” at voting centers. And attorneys , arguing&nbsp;that all such voters should be allowed to observe the counting of their ballots in person.The Maricopa County Elections Department says voters can use black or blue ink or Sharpies to fill out ballots in person. Their new tabulation machines this election, which were tested many times, will count ballots with these types of pens.Additionally, concerns over a Sharpie bleeding through a ballot in Maricopa County should be alleviated by the ballot itself being offset, meaning it would not spoil a vote on the other side of the ballot, the county said in a explaining the use of Sharpies.The county preferred Sharpies at vote centers because they dry quickly. Ballpoint ink can smudge onto optical readers or other ballots, creating issues, the county said.Later in the day, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors hit back at "misinformation" around the voting process, including on the use of Sharpies, in&nbsp;a letter from Clint Hickman,&nbsp;the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and a Democratic supervisor, Steve Gallardo.In the letter, the supervisors noted that Sharpies don't invalidate ballots and that elections workers extensively tested their use."People who voted by mail could use Sharpies, or blue and black pens. Our Elections Department has been communicating this public for weeks," the letter said.Elections are overseen by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Recorder's Office this year, the supervisors noted, saying all were committed to a "fair and efficient count of all votes."Voters can check the status of their ballots .At a polling place in Queen Creek on Tuesday, a&nbsp;plainclothes Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy was sent to investigate and found that a woman was handing voters ballpoint pens with a flyer urging them to not use Sharpies. The woman was told to stop and agreed to leave. The spokeswoman said new optical reading equipment was brought to the site to ensure ballots were read correctly.The reassurance comes after some voters say are concerned about how the ink from the Sharpies they were given at vote centers bled through on their ballot, and others who say their ballots were rejected at polling places.&nbsp;Some Republican voters calling The Arizona Republic say they are worried that their votes wouldn't count.&nbsp;Ric Serrano, for example, said he voted in Gilbert and had his ballot rejected multiple times by multiple machines. His ballot was eventually accepted by a machine. Poll workers started to give out black and blue pens, worried that it might be the pens causing the issues, he said.Gilbert is a heavily Republican area. Serrano is frustrated and worries about how any issues with ballots there might affect results.Pima County called the felt-tip pen controversy "unfounded" in on Wednesday.&nbsp;In that county, felt-tip pens are discouraged because of potential to bleed through the ballot. Again, this is not the case in Maricopa County this election because the ballots are offset from front to back."All ballots in which voter intent can be discerned will be counted. That's also in the manual. No ballots will be discarded because of the method used to color in the ovals," Pima County officials wrote on Twitter.&nbsp;Pinal County said it doesn't use Sharpies at its polling places.&nbsp;"The County uses Offical Voter Pens. If you voted in Pinal County, the ink does not bleed through the ballot paper," the countySEE THE WINNERS:&nbsp;If a felt-tip pen mark does bleed through on an early ballot, the ballot likely gets sent for duplication, meaning an elections worker will fill out a new ballots using the voters' choices that will be properly read by the tabulation machines, according Pima County, which referred to the.Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson said the county ballots previously required voters to fill in an arrow, which could bleed through using a Sharpie and lead to an overvote on the other side of the ballot.Gilbertson said when a person votes in person and runs their ballot through a tabulator, it will alert if there is an overvote and push the ballot out. The voter can choose to spoil that ballot and mark a new one, or decide to maintain the overvote.It is now an oval, and the ballot is offset, meaning it wouldn't bleed through to the back side, she said.Sharpies dry fastest, the county found through lots of tests of their processes, she said. Other inks could leave smudges on the mylar film that reads ballots and affect other ballots, she said."We did extensive testing on multiple different types of ink when we new these new precinct-based tabulators and our vendor approved the Sharpies as the fastest drying ink and the best ink to use," Gilbertson said.Safeguards and testing ensure votes are properly counted, Gilbertson said.“All of our tabulation equipment, including our precinct-based tabulators, are certified for accuracy by state and federal agencies, and we do a logic and accuracy test before and after each election so voters can be sure that that equipment is verifying those votes and counting them,” she said. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in Phoenix that voters should rest assured that ballots will be counted properly."A&nbsp;trained, employed polling place worker is not going to give you a pen to mark your ballot that is going to invalidate your ballot," Hobbs said.Still, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said he has asked the Arizona Attorney General's Office to look into the&nbsp;concerns.&nbsp;The office wrote a letter to the Maricopa County Elections Department asking questions about the situation.“Voters are concerned that the use of Sharpies may have caused ballots to be rejected, spoiled, or cancelled,” Deputy Solicitor General Michael S. Catlett wrote.There isn’t evidence to confirm whether this has happened to voters yet. Hobbs that voters may be seeing their ballot status online as “canceled” because they received an early ballot but decided to vote in person instead.“Canceled” in this case means their early ballot was canceled so their in-person ballot could be counted, she said.In the letter to Scott Jarrett, the county’s director of election&nbsp;day and emergency voting, Catlett asked for answers to:Reporter John D'Anna contributed to this story.&nbsp;Reach reporter Rachel Leingang by email&nbsp;at or by phone at 602-444-8157, or find her on and .Support local journalism. View Comments

Arizona RepublicView CommentsAs the presidential election and several other races in Arizona remain close, election&nbsp;officials stressed that voters' ballots will be counted regardless of what kind of pen they used.Elections departments across Arizona said there was no&nbsp;controversy over Sharpies and&nbsp;that they have processes in place to ensure ballots are counted regardless of what kind of utensil is used to fill them out.Still, the office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, asked questions of the Maricopa County Elections Department in a letter on Wednesday, saying...

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Sharpies and felt-tip pens on Arizona ballots won't disqualify votes, elections officials say

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