The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved the polling locations for the upcoming Primary and General elections in a meeting Wednesday.
Before the board moved to approve the 724 polling places, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell and Elections Director Karen Osborne answered questions and addressed concerns.
One concern revolved around the actual number of polling places.
"There are not 724 polling places," said Adrian Fontes, a Democrat running for the recorder position. "There are somewhere less than 650 actual, physical locations. There are combined polling places as the item agenda indicates. Now that doesn’t mean they’re in separate places. There may be separate entrances to the same building. They may be different rooms, but that’s misleading on its face."
Supervisor Steve Gallardo asked Purcell for more information about the shared polling locations.
"Our biggest problem is that we can’t find one in the precinct that are sufficient, that either meet the criteria for a polling place or even if there is a facility that is large enough," Purcell said.
Purcell said there are around 79 combined polling places. Other issues that came up during the meeting included the lack of poll workers and concerns over the fact that there are no on-campus polling places at ASU on Election Day.
