It is a miniscule amount, but Martha McSally earned an additional 27 votes in the latest tally posted by Pima County Elections officials in the CD2 race. Currently McSally is ahead of Barber by 161 votes.
The contest between McSally and incumbent Congressman Ron Barber will still be subject to an automatic recount sometime in December.
The incompetent Pima County Elections Department lead by Brad Nelson, under the oversight of Arizona’s uninterested Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, processed a total of 303 additional ballots today.
The County officials notified the public earlier today that they had discovered 208 additional valid general election ballots this morning. Those uncounted ballots were sent along by voters in Continental School District. As predicted by critics of the County, the voters appeared to have mistakenly placed their general election early ballot in with their Continental vote by mail ballot.
Voters in the school district were sent two separate ballots, after it was discovered that the County had misprinted the Continental School District portion of the general election ballot. The initial ballot instructed voters to pick three of the three candidates, when in fact there were only two seats available on the board.
The discovered ballots were tabulated today along with conditional provisional ballots that were left uncounted until the voter contacted the department to claim their ballot. Those that were not claimed by 5:00 p.m. today were disqualified.
State statute provides for an automatic recount in the CD2 race due to the narrow margin between the two candidates’ votes.
Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller was the only supervisor to vote for the purchase of precinct scanners and a hand count audit by precinct of Early Ballots following the recommendation of the Election Integrity Commission. The other Supervisors rejected the purchase claiming that the County could not afford them. Miller noted that the County administration claimed it didn’t have the funds for the scanners. “This,” said Miller to her constituents, “after they had approved the purchase of $16 million for vacant land on July 1. Supervisor Carroll’s appointment to the Election Integrity Commission, a former employee at the NSA, was so disappointed with the vote that he resigned from the Commission.”