Maricopa County election officials writing off voters? You bet

*The revolving irony in this story is direct and dizzying. Let’s follow the dots: Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, who is in charge of administering the election, decided to cut the number of polling places from 200 in 2012 to 60 yesterday to accommodate 1.9 million voters. She was able to make that decision because the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 Shelby v Holder case – the ruling did away with the pre-clearance section so Purcell owed no one an explanation for the 60 voting places. Yet, the people who stood in line, some for up to 5 hours, were waiting to vote for their choice to be the next president, who will nominate Justices to the Supreme Court, where this whole mess started to begin with. Purcell said she had fewer polling places because voters were allowed to vote anywhere, and not in their required  precincts, so she picked large places that would accommodate more voters. Many poor and Latino areas had no polling place because she didn’t think they would vote, anyway. Purcell, a Republican, was elected to the office of County Recorder in 1988. VL

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By Elvia Diaz, The Arizona Republic

For weeks, some Democrats have been sounding the alarm about not enough polling places in Maricopa County for Tuesday’s presidential primary.

They warned that reducing the number of polling places from 200 during the 2012 primary election to 60 would mean long lines and discourage people from voting.

They said the fact that some predominantly Latino areas got one or none polling places essentially translates into voter suppression.

Before, it was easy to dismiss their claims as pure conspiracy theories. It was difficult to fathom that Maricopa County election officials would purposely design a plan to keep people, especially minorities, away from the polls.

Well, think what you may. But the fact is that voting on Tuesday turned into long waits and traffic nightmares near some polling places, proving their case.

Click HERE to read the full story.

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[Photo courtesy of Cronkite News]

Suggested reading

Originally published in San Francisco in 1885, The Squatter and the Don is the first fictional narrative written and published in English from the perspective of the conquered Mexican population. Despite being granted the full rights of citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, this group had become a subordinated and marginalized national minority by 1860.

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton witnessed the disintegration of the old order, the shifts in power relations and the rapid capitalist development of the California territory, all of which led to the disruption of everyday life for the californios. In The Squatter and the Don, a historical romance, Ruiz de Burton laments land loss and calls for justice and redress of grievances. At a time when the few histories narrated by californios remained in manuscript form in archives, the very act of writing and publishing this novel was a form of empowerment.

The Squatter and the Don questions United States expansionism, as well as the rise of corporate monopolies and their power over government policy, all while successfully utilizing the favored nineteenth-century American literary genre to do so. This novel is a disquieting and challenging literary creation, all seen from the vantage point of very real characters who suffer individually, even while striving to embrace Anglo-American culture and the promises of American democracy.

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