On March 22, 2016, the state of Arizona had its primary election. In a presidential race that can be considered one for the books, to put it lightly, primaries are equally as important as the general election. A single primary has the ability to pull a candidate into a lead or solidify a win, meaning that if you can vote, you should, because it matters. Primaries usually don't attract extraordinary amounts of attention, unless something significant happens, like voter fraud. That's what happened in Arizona, and it's more important than you might initially think.
A record number of Arizona citizens turned out to vote, over 800,000, yet there were a mere 60 total polling places across the state. Phoenix had one polling place per 108,000 voters. In Maricopa County, some folks were forced to stand in line for more than five hours. This made it nearly impossible for working citizens to have time to vote and head back to work in a reasonable amount of time.
People with physical disabilities or conditions were not able to stand for that long and were forced to give up their right to vote. On top of that, by the time the Associated Press was calling in the winners for each party, hundreds of people were still in line to vote.
This election fraud isn't only happening in Arizona. In Iowa, Secretary Hillary Clinton won by a very slim margin after being crushed in Kansas and Minnesota. Thousands of voters called for a recount because it was so close. Inconsistent counts, untrained volunteers and crowded precincts plagued the state. The Iowa Democratic Party refused to do comply when Senator Bernie Sanders asked for a review of the results.
Besides the long lines and unorganized fashion in which polling places were constructed, hundreds of people experienced their registration being erased. In one case, a woman who has been a registered Democrat since 2014, didn't show in her county's registration database when she went to vote.
As a young adult entering into the 2016 election as a first-time voter, these facts and allegations do nothing but scare me. If 66 percent of Americans believe that our voting system is unjust in any way, why should I trust that my vote is going be used accurately and in the way it's intended?
It's frustrating to think that there won't be recounts in Arizona's election, or Iowa's, or any other state that experienced similar issues. What does it take to put a simple, genuine voting system in place that caters to everyone's needs? For a number of reasons, including de-registering voters and accommodating 800,000 citizens in 60 polling places, people were unable to exercise their right to vote. This should upset people and this should start a nation-wide conversation about our voting system and how it needs to be altered.
