Controversy in Arizona, Landslides in Utah and Idaho; Could this be a shift?

Another day has past and another election has ended. This time, it was Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. Democrats voted in all 3 states while Republicans voted in 2, Utah and Arizona and as you may have heard, Trump and Clinton won the night. There is a small detail that seems to be missing however, Trump and Clinton winning Arizona was not the biggest news of the night, not by a long shot. To further explain this, we must look at Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas separately.

Looking At Yesterday's Result

Utah

In Utah, there was massive turnout in voting. On the Republican side, there were roughly 129K people voting. On the Democrat side, not as many people as there were roughly 65K people voting. However, both side showed that they did not support the front-runners and they showed it in a big way. How big, you say? Well, by at least 40%! In essence, both Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders won the state of Utah in a complete landslide.

Idaho

In Idaho, there was also massive turnout in voting, although not as much as Utah or Arizona. Roughly 24K people voted on Tuesday and just like Utah, they showed they did not like the frontrunner. Like Utah, Bernie Sanders won in a complete landslide with a difference of around 40%.

Arizona

Arizona… yes, there is a lot to talk about Arizona.

First and foremost is how cringe-worthy the whole process was in Arizona last night. Let’s talk about what many have called “voter suppression.” It has been reported that many who wanted to vote last night were instead given provisional ballots and turned away. Although the number varies, last I heard were tens of thousands. That is a whole lot of people. State Election Officials have stated that they were turned away because they were registered as Independents and due to the rules, were not allowed to vote. The problem however lies with many of those people stating they changed their status to either Republican or Democrat prior to the deadline. Several of them were also turned away due to wrong address. Hence, they were all given provisional ballots which by my understanding, do not matter. This sort of action disenfranchises a whole chunk of voters. On a brighter note though, I have read that usually, provisional ballots will be counted within a week after voting so an overturn of the Hillary Clinton win or Donald Trump win may be possible but by that time, the story would be lost.

Another problem in the Arizona Primary occurred in Maricopa County. It was decided that in order to save money, they will cut polling locations. By how much seems to be appalling by all statistical standards. It has been reported that with 300,000 voters, they had 200 locations for the 2012 election. However, in an election with somewhere along the line of at least twice as much, they only had 60 locations. This resulted in massive lines that frustrated many of the voters to the point where they gave up. For those who actually waited in those long line, they waited for hours to vote. Polling in Arizona closed at 7pm their time, yet there were reports of people waiting to vote as late as 1:30am, that is a 7+ hour wait in line. These events have caused many throughout the United States to start several petitions to have Arizona revote, have UN officials oversee the voting, and a possible class action lawsuit. Even the governor or Arizona, Doug Ducey has called for changes to the voting process. It has just been reported that a protest in Maricopa County is being set up. At this point, regardless if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won Arizona officially, the whole Arizona Primary has been tainted by the action of those put in charge.

Shift On The Horizon?

To be honest, I think Bernie Sanders' win with a landslide in Utah and Idaho is a major shift in this election. A few weeks ago before I started this blog, I stated that almost all of Hillary Clinton's guarantee states were over. From this point, there are no more guarantee states for Clinton. The states that are coming up now are classified as more liberal and they are in turn, in more favor to Sanders than Clinton. To put it simply, do not be surprise to see Bernie Sanders catching up to Hillary Clinton in the delegate counts up to this point.

On the Republican side of things, I do not see any change between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. However, that does not mean Cruz is not a threat to Trump.

So exactly how much of a threat is Cruz to Trump? The answer is a major threat as Trump may not get the needed delegate count to get the nomination. How about Sanders to Clinton? Remember, Sanders is a candidate that no one knew about and over time, has taken away Clinton's inevitable nominee status. As of last night, MSM has reported that Clinton may not get enough delegates in time for the convention. I will like to say that alone makes Sanders a major threat to Clinton.

Edits:

Edit #1

Things have certainly gotten interesting in Arizona. As stated before, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has publicly called for a change to the voting process. What has also been reported since then was that Phoenix, AZ Mayor Greg Stanton is calling for an investigation from the Department of Justice into the issue with long lines. On top of that, a special meeting has been called for Maricopa County on Monday March 28 at the Arizona State House.

There has also been reports of Bernie Sanders campaign office in Arizona getting hacked. This lead to Anonymous getting involved with an investigation of their own. To sum things up, they are trying to answer the following:

1. Whether the allegation that Sanders' campaign was hacked true?

2. How easy is it to changes someones election status?

3. Did this only affect Sanders' or did it affect the other campaigners as well?

4. Why were less than 35,000 votes tallied in Maricopa County when they have a population of roughly 4 million?