Phoenix (3TV/CBS 5) — Almost a month after Election Day, Maricopa County elections officials will begin recounting votes on Wednesday in three head-to-head races.
All 15 Arizona counties go through the same automatic recount process for their Attorney General and Public Education Supervisor election campaigns. The 13th legislative district election is a recount that affects Maricopa County only.
Arizona law requires an automatic recount if the margin between two candidates is within 0.5%. Maricopa County has had two county recounts since the last statewide recount in 2010, according to the Maricopa County Elections Authority.
Due to new laws that increase the likelihood of recounts, Megan Gilbertson of the Maricopa County Elections Office said the agency had purchased and had seven additional tallies ready before November. Starting Wednesday morning, more than 130 people will return to work at the tallying center in downtown Phoenix.
Legally, the Office of the Secretary of State must petition the court to order a recount before the recount can officially begin. Once that’s done, the office must travel to every Arizona county to complete testing of equipment logic and accuracy before tallying can begin. It was completed in Maricopa County on Tuesday.
Gilbertson says the equipment would need to be reprogrammed to count just the three contests in question. As with general elections, all political parties are involved in the process. “Maricopa County political parties play a huge role in this,” she added. “They appoint committees for their adjudication committees. They designate their handcount boards. They also have observers throughout the process.”
Once the machine counts are complete, election officials plan to begin an audit of the 2% hand recounts this weekend, which will take several days, Gilbertson told family in Arizona.
One aspect of the recount that differs from the general election is that Arizona law does not allow counties to publish the results during the recount. As each county is completed, Gilbertson says he will provide the sealed results to the judges, who will confirm the winners.
A court hearing is scheduled for December 22, Gilbertson said, so the county should complete the recount by that date.
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