arizona news
Has been updated: December 29, 2022 at 1:56 PM
(Facebook photo/Pinal County)
PHOENIX — After a tumultuous election cycle, Pinal County attributes the discrepancy in vote counts to “human error” after the recount was released on Thursday.
The statewide lead for Democrat Chris Mays over Republican Abe Hamade was cut from 511 votes to 280 votes in the Arizona Attorney General election.
After the recount, Hamade added 392 votes, while Mays received an additional 115 votes in Pinal County. Apache County added Mays with her 39 votes, and her double-digit change in her other 13 counties in Arizona.
“The recount has taken place and the recount process has performed as expected.We have identified an undercount of approximately 500 votes due to human error in the Pinal County election,” the county said. said in a statement Thursday.
The margin did not affect Mays’ victory, but Hamade and his lawyers threatened legal action After announcement of results.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office issued a press release stating that “discrepancies between original and recounted results have occurred and are not unexpected,” but that this is Pinal County’s first election issue in 2022. It wasn’t.
The county dealt with ballot shortages at various polling places during the August 2 primary, leading to the resignation of David Frisk as elections officer.
About 2.5% of the votes were affected, which Pinal blamed on human error.
Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer said at the time, “We screwed up. There’s nothing wrong with this. This is just a mistake.”
Prior to that, county officials had to scramble to address tens of thousands of voters who were sent incorrect early mail-in ballots in June.
In addition to approximately 46,000 ballots mailed to voters in Casa Grande, Eloy, Maricopa, Mammoth, and Superior, Apache Junction and the Pinal County portion of Queen Creek did not hold city elections.
The county also blamed the mistake on human error.
Mays and the other winners of the 2022 midterm elections will be sworn in next week.
