Three months after a disastrous primary, Pinal County appeared to have gone smoothly through Election Day in November.
But the county made some ballot counting errors, officials said Thursday, revealing a 500-vote discrepancy between the certified election tally and the recounted results. rice field.
“The purpose of recounting is to ensure an accurate total vote count. It is reasonable to expect mistakes,” the county official said. in a statement. “The recounting process performed exactly as envisioned. Approximately 500 votes undercounted due to human error were identified in the Pinal County election.”
Running south and east of Maricopa County, the county is home to approximately 450,000 residents and has experienced rapid growth in recent years. About 140,000 voters cast their ballots there in the November elections.
This issue does not change the outcome of the two races for State Attorney General and State Superintendent of Schools. Many officials also said they believed the recount results were accurate.
Still, the newly tallied vote puts Attorney General-elect Chris Mays, a Democrat, in the lead against Republican opponent Abe Hamade in one of the closest races in Arizona history. narrowed.
‘Thankful’:New Arizona Attorney General Mays Responds After Recount Confirms Victory
New votes gave Republican incoming superintendent Tom Horn a victory over incumbent Democrat Kathy Hoffman.
And Pinal County’s discrepancy could be attributed to paper jams and staff mistakes, officials said, throwing more eggs into the face of a county that has already endured a tumultuous election cycle.
It also fuels people who are skeptical of the results. Hours after the recount was released, Mr Hamade made it clear he had not given up on his challenge to the election, releasing a statement calling for “every ballot” to be tested, and counting from the November 8 election. He said the 1,000 provisional votes were not counted. .
People cast provisional ballots when their eligibility to vote is questioned. These ballots may remain uncounted if election officials determine that a voter is ineligible to participate.
Pinal County Counting Issues
The tallying problem was discovered when officials were investigating an Election Day issue regarding voter check-ins at some polling stations, election director Geraldine Rolle told the Arizona Secretary of State’s office. I wrote a report on the tally.
Check-in stations weren’t scanning some driver’s licenses properly, so poll workers were calling voter registration officers to make sure voters were eligible to vote, Roll said. writing.
While investigating the matter, officials opened ballot boxes from constituencies. The count on the canvas reflected his 422 votes cast from that constituency on Election Day, while his count on the hand was 600. Officials picked other constituencies to count and found other discrepancies.
By that time, the vote tally had already been authenticated.
“One factor underlying this discrepancy is that the canvas was submitted before we had the proper opportunity to investigate any anomalies that could be discerned from the polling place returns,” Roll wrote.
By reviewing the video footage, election staff ruled out that the additional ballots were added to the locked boxes of precinct ballots, Rolle said. , the video footage showed no evidence that they intentionally miscounted the votes.
The problem Rolle wrote appeared to have boiled down to paper jams that prevented some ballots from being read and operator error. The papers were not counted and 63 ballots were not sorted correctly for adjudication, she wrote.
Undercounts are added to the rough election cycle
This is not the first time Pinal County has released news about election administration.
In July, approximately 63,000 early ballots for primary elections were sent to voters with errors related to local elections. Then, on primary election day, August 2, his quarter of polling places in the county ran out of ballots.
The issue ultimately led to the firing of former elections administrator David Frisk, the contracting of interim elections administrator Virginia Ross to $200,000, and an external investigation into the matter, leading to the elections office becoming a “chronic” with high turnover. It became clear that there was a significant shortage of personnel.
On Thursday, county officials were quick to notice the difference between the counting problem and the problem during the August primary.
“This wasn’t as serious as the primary, where some people couldn’t vote because of the snafus,” said Oversight Board President Jeff Sardy. “Now the votes were there. First they weren’t counted, then they were counted.”
He said Maricopa County saw a bigger problem disenfranchising voters, plaguing the county on Election Day, with several lawsuits from unelected candidates, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. I mentioned the problem of the target printer.
“It didn’t affect anything,” Serdi said. “Everybody has to vote. That’s the main thing.”
Maricopa County officials claim voters there were able to cast their ballots despite printer problems.
Pinal County officials said in a statement that the total difference between initial certification and recount results was 0.35%, below the recount margin of 0.5% set by state law.
They wrote that the county will continue to investigate the matter, “believes wholeheartedly in free and fair elections” and will report its findings and recommendations to supervisors “who will take all steps possible.”
Serdy said he was confident in the accuracy of the recount results, as Roll said in the recount summary. Supervisor Kevin Kavanaugh, who has previously criticized the use of tabulators within the county, said he did not believe the discrepancy was the result of voter fraud.
“We’re releasing our book to let everyone know exactly how it happened,” Serdy told the Arizona Republic on Thursday.
Republic reporter Tara Kavalor contributed to this article.
Sasha Hupka covers regional affairs for Maricopa County, Pinal County, and the Republic of Arizona.Any tips for county government or county services? Contact her sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.comFollow her on Twitter. @SashaHupka.
