Our View: A five-hour wait to vote in Arizona primary? That's shameful

We don't need to know the answers yet to make the judgment that what happened at Maricopa County polling places on Tuesday was a massive failure in planning and execution.

No fact tells you that more clearly than this one: At midnight, some Arizonans were still standing in moonlight trying to cast a vote in Phoenix.

That is an outrage.

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Some residents of metro Phoenix waited in line more than five hours to vote in an election with high stakes for their country. They waited because county bureaucrats badly bungled a decision to reduce polling places as a cost-cutting measure. Those officials apparently decided the rise in early voting gave them an opportunity to cut corners and save money.

They reduced polling places from 200-plus from four years ago to 60 on Tuesday. While they made it possible for county residents to vote in any of the polling places, not just their precincts, they did not account for such things as high turnout or parking. Some people tell us they gave up trying to vote because there was no parking, only a massive traffic jam.

County officials owe us answers, not excuses.

This is no time to be cheap

Elections are not a time to skimp on costs. You make voting a living hell for citizens and you undermine their confidence in their government and in an electoral system they expect to be fair and honest.

Today, a lot of Maricopa County residents are wondering what was the motive behind the madness -- whether county officials, indeed, meant to suppress turnout.

We don't believe that.

There are decent people running the county elections' office, but they failed where other counties did not. No other county in Arizona reported the kinds of torturous lines that formed up at Maricopa County polling places.

Pima County provided its voters 130 sites, more than twice as many as Maricopa County, for one-quarter as many voters. That led to ease of voting in the southern part of our state, and disaster in urban Phoenix.

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Here's what one Maricopa County voter wrote to us:

"I literally went to multiple polling places, a total of FIVE separate times, only to find that the 1 hour wait (which I didn't have time for this morning) only increased as the day went on. Eventually, I gave up at 6:40 p.m. when I saw the line at its longest, at least 2-3 hours. This was the first time in my life I genuinely felt disenfranchised."

"Disenfranchised" was a flash word on Tuesday. Many voters used it.

Key questions for county officials

We heard from a lot of hardy souls who stayed in line to participate in this election. But how many more just gave up and left the polls without casting a vote?

How many of them are likely to skip the next election?

Those are just some of the questions we'd like to ask county officials.

More specifically we demand to know:

• What calculation led to this massive misjudgment in polling places? 
• Why did you make such drastic reductions in polling places when you might have reduced them gradually?
• Why weren't you providing more answers on Tuesday when the public was furiously demanding answers?
• Why did you not account for parking problems created by fewer polling places?

And finally:

•  What changes will you make now to ensure this doesn't happen in November or ever after?

Anticipate these questions. Not because the media will be asking them, as we surely will. But because a mass of angry voters is ready to beat down your door.