Lawmakers work to solve election debacle

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Many trying to vote in Tuesday's Presidential Preference Election found themselves waiting in long lines, and the fallout from the debacle isn't over yet. State lawmakers now want to make sure there isn't a repeat performance come November.

"You know this morning the first thing I did was called to make sure we start on a bill to make sure this problem does not happen again," said State Senator Kimberly Yee.

Sen. Yee says she was one of the frustrated voters Tuesday, spending 5 1/2 hours in line and finally casting her ballot at 12:20 a.m. Wednesday. She says the next step is a solution, so it does not happen again.

"We're going to work with the county elections office to ensure that we have their support as well, and we're going to try and identify that magic number, the adequate number of polling locations, and perhaps continue with consolidated elections," said Yee.

Across the aisle, Sen. Martin Quesada is also looking for a solution, but he says he's already drafted several bills that could have prevented the debacle, but they went unread this session.

"I think that there's always Room to mess with the number of polling places that we have, but to reduce them by that amount, such a drastic amount compared to four years ago ,and 85% reduction from 8 years ago, we should have expected that there were going to be problems as a result of that," said Sen. Quesada.

Attorney Brian Foster says it's possible an individual, political party, or even candidate could sue over a constitutional rights violation as a result of voter suppression.

"So more than likely what you'd be asking to do is to fix things so that this doesn't happen during the general election in November, and that is something that I think you could probably accomplish with that type of a lawsuit," said Foster.

One thing that a lot of people agree on was the encouraging part of yesterday was that so many people wanted to be involved and exercise their right to vote.