Maricopa County Officials Reassure Public Amid Outage Linked to CrowdStrike

By Matthew Holloway |

On Tuesday, Maricopa County Elections officials held a press conference to outline voter expectations ahead of the upcoming July 30th primary election. They emphasized the importance of the primary as a precursor to the November General Election. The briefing also tackled pressing concerns following the recent CrowdStrike outage and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.

Maricopa County District 3 Supervisor Bill Gates addressed the tense political climate, stating, “Unfortunately, we’re talking about and thinking about political violence in our country right now in a way that we haven’t in a long time.” Gates assured the public of their commitment to providing a secure voting experience for both election workers and voters. “It’s very important that everybody understands that me and my colleagues on the board are committed to safe, secure, and transparent elections,” he added.

Fielding questions about the impact of the CrowdStrike outage, Fields Moseley, Maricopa County Communications Director, detailed the county’s prompt response. “We feel like we had a fairly low impact. Almost 400 people voted on Friday despite the outage, and we were able to open 40 vote centers by the end of the day. None of the tabulators were affected as they’re on an air-gap system, not connected to the internet,” he clarified.

The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Arizona expressed their concerns in a joint letter to the Maricopa County Elections Director following the disruption.

AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda commented on the CrowdStrike issue, stating, “We are demanding information on any other systems affected, if vulnerabilities were exploited, and full evidence demonstrating that there were no breaches. Most importantly, we must have complete assurance that this will not happen again and that the election systems are not susceptible to these threats during our country’s most important election.”

Moseley responded to these concerns, “We’re aware of the letter from the RNC. We will respond at the appropriate time. We opened at 9:00 a.m. with four vote centers and managed to have 40 open by the end of the day. None of the tabulators were impacted as they’re on an air-gap system, not connected to the internet.”

Looking ahead to the General Election, Jennifer Liewer, Deputy Elections Director for Communications, assured the public, “We will have over 240 vote centers open. Increased resources and technology personnel will ensure we are prepared for any issues. Our IT staff were up in the middle of the night to address any problems, showing our commitment to a seamless voting experience.”

Moseley described the CrowdStrike outage as a unique event, even jokingly referencing Delta Airlines. When asked about switching to a different system, he couldn’t confirm whether the county is re-evaluating its use of CrowdStrike for cybersecurity or Microsoft’s products.

Officials anticipate 623,000 ballots will be cast through mail, dropbox, or in-person for the primary election, with approximately 94,000 in-person on election day. Total turnout is projected to be between 718,000-894,000, about 30% of the electorate.

Assistant County Manager Zach Schira highlighted the heavy investment in election security and staffing. “Good people ran lawful elections in Maricopa County in 2020 and 2022 and are doing so in 2024. We have invested more than $15 million in new resources and equipment to ensure the efficiency and security of our operations,” he stated.

Matthew Holloway is a reporter for AZ Free News. For more of his stories, follow him on X or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.