PHOENIX – The latest batch of votes tallied on Tuesday leaves the final two statewide Arizona races undecided.
Republican candidate for public school principal, Tom Horn, extended his lead over Democratic incumbent Kathy Hoffman. Currently, a total of 8,576 votes separate her two, with Horne making up 50.2% of her.
Considering there are only about 28,000 votes left statewide, this lead could prove insurmountable by Hoffman. This includes about 12,000 in Maricopa County, more than 5,400 in Pima County, 4,500 in Apache County, and he 1,400 in Pinal County. A few other counties have fewer.
But the battle for Attorney General can clearly go either way.
Republican Abe Hamade added another 11,678 votes to Monday’s total. But the new report also included 9,362 votes for Democrat Chris Mays, cutting her lead to just 771 votes, effectively tying the race to 50-50.
About 2.57 million votes have been tallied so far.
Arizona law requires an automatic recount if the final difference between the candidates is less than one-half of 1% of the total votes cast in that race.
About a third of the uncounted votes appear to be ballots waiting to be “fixed.” These are cases where the signature on the early ballot envelope does not match the signature already recorded by the county elections official.
But time is running out. State law sets a deadline of 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 16 to resolve the matter.
There are also approximately 6,100 provisional ballots, typically given to those who show up at a vote center without the required identification. This can only be rectified by the voter bringing the paperwork to the elections office or city or county clerk by the 5:00 pm deadline on Wednesday.
Howard Fisher
Mr. Fisher is an award-winning Arizona journalist and founder and operator of Capitol Media Services.
