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Maricopa County Recorder talks election issues

Posted at 11:08 PM, Mar 28, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-29 07:51:39-04

The elections committee put County Recorder Helen Purcell in the hot seat over that mess on Election Day, but now the real question at hand is what's being done to make sure it doesn't happen again?

The next election is May 17, a statewide vote over propositions 123 and 124.

In a one-on-one interview with ABC15, Purcell said she aims to double the number of polling sites in Maricopa County from the 60 that were available for the presidential preference election.

She says more E-poll books will be added at each site to check in voters—this is in the wake of having to bring in reserves to some locations last Tuesday.

Staff manning the voting sites are always trained, but Purcell says more focus will be put on verifying and troubleshooting a voter's registration status.

"We have a number of things to improve our training on and to change our training on,” said Purcell.

She says they are working with the Motor Vehicle Department to identify any problems with data transfers, as many voters had to renew their license for the first time in decades and many may not have filled in the voter identification question.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan also said Monday that a glitch was found in the third-party voter verification system used to help voters check their registration status. Reagan said the system was not responding if voters entered their license numbers using lower-case letters and that the problem has since been fixed and tested.

"The system was hard-coded to not accept lower case letters. This is completely unacceptable," said Reagan.

If you are questioning whether the Recorder’s Office has you registered with the correct party, you can double check their work and should do it early as any changes to voter status need to be made 29 days before the next election.

Click here to see which party the elections office has you registered with. Double check your voter identification card to make sure the party of your choice is correctly printed. If there are any inconsistencies email the Recorder's Office.