On Thanksgiving Day, the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Cindy Jorgenson in the CD2 race allowed the canvass of the 2014 General Election to proceed today. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett was joined by Governor Jan Brewer, Attorney General Tom Horne and Chief Justice Scott Bales as he certified the results of November’s General Election.
Of Arizona’s 3,235,963 registered voters, 1,537,671 cast a ballot and more than 1.1 million votes came via an early ballot. The number of provisional ballots issued totaled 65,900, a 61% decrease from 2012.
It is unknown how many ballots were improperly rejected by county officials across the state. Bennett has been an absentee Secretary of State while he ran an unsuccessful race for governor.
The 161 vote difference between Congressman Ron Barber and Martha McSally has triggered an automatic recount. The Ron Barber campaign fought to have the votes of 131 residents of southern Arizona counted, however the judge found that Barber’s lawyers had not met their burden required by the court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order.
McSally fought to have the votes of Pima County residents rejected. Her campaign filed an opposition, and a Motion to Dismiss. Bennett joined in the opposition to the Motion for a Preliminary Injunction and the Motion to Dismiss.
The judge wrote that she was “not unsympathetic to the plight of individual voters whose ballots may have been improperly rejected,” but found “that Plaintiffs have not met their burden to show pervasive error that undermines the integrity of the election.” The judge noted that the “Ninth Circuit draws a distinction between “garden variety” election irregularities and a pervasive error that undermines the integrity of the vote. In general, garden variety election irregularities do not violate the Due Process Clause, even if they control the outcome of the vote or election.”
Republicans have complained rightly for years that Pima County has had arbitrary and inconsistent rules, as well as irregularities in the process employed by the County’s Elections Department. However, they have been silent regarding the irregularities in this election because the errors now favor McSally. For GOP leaders in Arizona, a McSally win is essential. While the GOP swept the elections this year in other states, the Arizona GOP was only able to pick up CD2 by a hair. Arizona has been a red state and the performance of the GOP has surprised many.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, if an election contest is filed pursuant to A.R.S. § 16-672, the SOS will seek a stay of the recount until the contest is resolved in accordance with A.R.S. § 16-667.
SOS 2014 CD2 General Election Recount – Cochise & Pima Counties Tentative Timeline
December 1, 2014
Statewide Canvass (A.R.S. § 16-648)
CD2 Recount Triggered (A.R.S. § 16-661(A)(2)): The margin between Martha McSally and Ron Barber is 161 votes. Anything less than 200 votes triggers the recount for this race.
December 1-2
Court will enter an order requiring a recount for CD2, which includes a deadline to conduct the recount. (A.R.S. § 16-663)
The SOS office has communicated with Cochise and Pima counties to determine the time necessary to conduct the recount.
The proposed order will require the county treasurers to release the ballots to the election officials and require the recount to be completed and results certified by Dec. 16th.
The counties will begin set-up for the recount.
December 3
SOS and the counties will conduct Logic and Accuracy Tests on the voting systems used to tabulate the ballots for the recount
December 4-15
Pima and Cochise will tabulate the ballots for the CD2 recount.
December 15
Counties will provide results to the SOS.
The counties will return the ballots to the custody of the County Treasurer.
December 16
SOS provides results to the court.
Certification of Results by the Court (A.R.S. § 16-665).