Phoenix Suns and Mercury secure Madhouse on McDowell as voting center

The Phoenix Suns and Mercury will be making the Madhouse on McDowell available for a polling center for this year’s November election.

One of the actions the NBA took after the playoff stoppage was to organize a task force to make it easier for people to vote. Right now, there are a lot of empty arenas just sitting around doing nothing, and so many teams have been encouraged to offer these arenas to cities as polling centers. The Phoenix Suns and Mercury can’t offer Talking Stick Resort Arena due to the transformation project construction, so they have offered the next best thing: The Madhouse on McDowell.

The Suns announced on Wednesday afternoon Veterans Memorial Colleseum would be made available to the state of Arizona and Maricopa County as a polling center as well as an early voting mail-in drop-off location. The date for the latter option is still pending and will be announced at a later time.

The Phoenix Suns are offering the Madhouse on McDowell as a polling center.

Robert Sarver, Devin Booker, and Mikal Bridges were part of the group that worked with state and county officials, including Governor Ducey, to make this happen.

The advantage of using such a large space as a polling center this year is that it allows for socially distanced voting booths. In these extremely rare times, this is important so that people feel safer casting their ballot in person. Also, it is very rare arenas are even available in early November, so the league is making the most of this unique opportunity.

The Madhouse on McDowell re-opened during the hiatus when basketball activities were permitted to resume and is currently open for players as well. Jevon Carter recently posted a picture of the inside of the arena to his Instagram story, showing he is continuing to get in work even though the season is over.

In an ideal world, Talking Stick Resort Arena would be made available, but considering it is likely to still be a construction zone in early November, that isn’t a possibility. Hardhats on voters is not a good combination.