Camille Kroskey was leaving nothing to chance when she cast her ballot in Arizona on Tuesday, one of millions of Americans who will decide the outcome of the battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
This die-hard Republican would not even think about voting by mail in a must-win state that has been plagued by conspiracy theories and distrust.
“I want to make sure I drop my ballot where it’s going to actually land somewhere,” the 62-year-old medical assistant told AFP at the city hall in Surprise, a suburb of Phoenix.
“Now, will it get counted?… I don’t know.”
Voting officials say it will, and that all legal votes — and only legal votes — will decide the result of the US presidential election.
But years of conspiracy theories shared by Trump and his supporters, and amplified by an online disinformation ecosystem, have left some in this state distrustful.
Claims of stuffed ballot boxes, hacked voting machines and non-citizen voting abound.
Investigations by both major parties, dozens of court cases, and the hard work of people on both sides of the aisle have failed to stem the cancer that is eating away at American democracy.
The problem is particularly acute in Arizona, where Trump lost in 2020 by a wafer-thin 10,500 votes — the first Republican defeat since 1996.
Some supporters were convinced it was a fix, and at the 2022 midterm elections armed men loomed over ballot boxes, ostensibly to make sure nothing was amiss.
Democrats accused them of intimidation.
Technical problems that affected some machines in heavily populated Maricopa County — home to Phoenix, one of the biggest and fastest growing cities in the country — did nothing to reassure voters.
That resulted in long lines at some polling stations.
Courts found that no one was deprived of their vote because of these problems, but some local Republicans still contest the results.
– ‘Not sure’ –
For Kroskey, the issues with the machines were suspicious.
“For all the years that we’ve been voting, how can you suddenly start having problems with the voter machines?” she said.
“Our system isn’t safe. We’re not sure that everybody is getting counted appropriately.”
Kroskey said that one of her co-workers received three ballots, which she believed would allow them to vote multiple times.
Vote organizers say all returned voting forms are checked against registered signatures and against the electoral roll, meaning that no one can get more than one vote.
Arizona will be under intense scrutiny again this year.
In 2020, angry protesters with guns demonstrated for several nights in a row outside Maricopa County election center during lengthy ballot counting operations.
In an attempt to stem conspiracy theories — already being fuelled by Trump, who is telling his supporters that “cheating” is likely this year — local election officials are doubling down on transparency.
Cameras are livestreaming counting operations at Maricopa County election center, and officials have implored voters to trust the process.
“We’ve hired 4,000 temporary election workers to facilitate the 2024 general election,” said Zach Schira, one of the officials overseeing the election.
“These are your neighbors. These are your friends. These are people you go to church with. I promise you that they want your vote to count.”
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Tuesday that a number of hoax bomb threats had been received, but no polling station was closed as a result.
After years of poisonous argument, trust in the electoral process has been badly shaken.
In August, a national poll showed less than half of Republican voters were confident that the presidential election would be conducted fairly, according to a Pew Research Center study.
Outside Surprise City Hall, several Republican volunteers who came to hand out leaflets said they were suspicious, a sentiment reinforced by what they consider an overly-lengthy counting process that could stretch for weeks.
“I have doubts.” Bob Branch, a 66-year-old university professor wearing a Trump 2024 cap, told AFP.
“And the reason why we have doubts is we won’t know tonight who won or lost… That’s just wrong.”
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