Phoning it in

There were reports prior to the election that Democrats were being called and told their polling places had been moved (when they hadn't) or that the date of voting in their precinct had been changed. Democrats blamed Republicans, and Republicans denied it all. And since there was no proof, there was no way to pin the blame.

Enter Maricopa County, Arizona:

Maricopa County had the fourth-highest number of reported problems on Election Day or days leading up to election among all counties, with 1,313 problems in all. Only Cuyahoga County, Ohio; Philadelphia; and Los Angeles had higher numbers.

Statewide, there have been 1,187 reports to the hotline. Among those were 133 reported problems with absentee ballots; 392 complaints related to voter registration; 33 complaints of voter intimidation; 32 involving voting machine-related problems; eight complaints of non-English language assistance; 93 reported provisional ballot problems; four complaints that polling places opening late; 10 complaints that polling places closed early; 75 complaints that lines to vote were too long; and 350 more general polling place problems.

But it's the telephone calls directing Arizona voters to show up at the wrong precincts that have the attention of the lawyers committee.

"Why the incidents in Phoenix and in Pima County are so important is that, while people in most other states found that they were blocked when trying to use their Caller IDs to identify the sources of misleading calls, a couple of the Arizonans were able to do that," Arnwine said.

One of them, she said, a voter in Tucson, found a message left on his answering machine on Nov. 2 telling him to go to the wrong polling place. He used the "last number" dial-back feature and got the local Republican headquarters, she said. At least one of the phone calls or messages was tape- recorded, she said.

Whoops.

Of course, the issue is not whether this influenced the election in Arizona, but rather that voter fraud took place, and seemingly was sponsored by the GOP itself.