Conservative activist details extensive obstacles to voting in Maricopa County during midterms

A conservative activist this week detailed the chaotic scene at a voting station in Maricopa County, Ariz., during the November midterm elections, recounting to Just the News her own difficulty casting a ballot amid a litany of technical and procedural hurdles that she asserts turned many away.

"Maricopa County was absolutely insane," said Erica Knight, an activist associated with former Trump aide Kash Patel and Arizona GOP Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh.

Knight spoke on the "Just the News, No Noise" television shown on Tuesday, telling host John Solomon and co-host Amanda Head that she "woke up to messages everywhere about you know, this, this polling location is closed, people are in line, they're kicking them out, this polling location is closed, whatever."

"We got in line, I got my ballot filled, it all went to the machines, and it was rejected," she explained. "Then, they go over [to] the other machine. It was rejected. And then they sent you back to the other machine, and it was rejected. And finally, after about 10 times, we spoiled it. I went through that again. I spoiled another one."

"And finally, my third ballot and about, you know, five or six times, they finally accepted it. And that was happening all around me. I mean, people were getting frustrated," Knight recalled. "People were leaving people. I mean, we don't have a day off for election day, people were sitting there, and eventually they're like, 'I gotta go'."

Knight said that her experience was one widely shared by her fellow voters at the station.

"I think it happened to hundreds of other people," she said. "I mean, just around me, they were getting rejected left and right. It's these machines." She further attributed the variation between polling data and the final outcome to would-be Republican voters leaving the stations instead of enduring the wait time and effort needed to successfully cast a ballot.

She concluded with an appeal to the Republican Party to change its approach to mail-in voting. Rather than working to eliminate the practice, the GOP ought to embrace it and adapt to the new voting environment, she argued.

"Like it or not, these are the new rules," Knight acknowledged. "And if we ever want to win an election, again, we're gonna have to start playing by them, we have to change our strategy, mail-in voting, like it or not, is not going anywhere, especially in Arizona. And you know, we're gonna have to accept it and change the way we play the game."