All of Arizona’s ballots are counted, but the process is not quite over.
Two statewide contests and one legislative race qualified for automatic recounts under Arizona’s new recount law.
Here is what to expect in the next month.
In Arizona, recounts are automatic, no candidate can request one, and they take place right after the results are certified.
The first step in the process is county certification, counties are ultimately responsible for administering their own elections.
So far, nine counties have certified their election results as official, while six are scheduled to certify on Monday, the statutory deadline.
This is not a discretionary vote by county supervisors.
By law, they must certify election results. If they refuse, the state Supreme Court would either compel them, or do it themselves.
Some certifications may be challenged in court, for that, all eyes are on Maricopa County.
For example, data shows that 248,115 election day voters checked in to one of the county’s 223 vote centers to cast a ballot.
The county tabulated 248,070 votes, a difference of 45. Election lawyers might look to that discrepancy to mount a challenge to certification.
There are three contests close enough to go to recount based on Arizona’s new recount law requiring a separation of 0.5%. The closest is the Attorney General race, Democrat Kris Mayes leads Republican Abe Hamedeh by only 510, a difference of 0.02%
The Superintendent of Public Instruction race is also recount eligible. Republican Tom Horne is ahead of current Superintendent Democrat Kathy Hoffman by about nine thousand votes, a lead of 0.38%, just under the threshold.
Finally, there is a state house race in Chandler. Two republicans are vying for the second-place seat, Liz Harris, who has said she will not cast a vote in the house unless the entire election is redone, leads Julie Willoughby by 270 votes, 0.2%.
Despite the closeness of each of these contests, none of them would have qualified for a recount under Arizona’s old law, which required contests to be either within 0.1%, or in the cast of statewide races, under 200 votes.
Once state certification is completed on December 5, a lawsuit will be filed on behalf of the Secretary of State informing the courts that recounts are required.
After the lawsuit is filed and accepted, counties will, for all intents and purposes, re-run the election for the recounted contests. Equipment will be put through Logic & Accuracy testing and ballots will be run through the counties’ high-capacity central count tabulators.
The process will be much faster than last week since all ballots are already verified.
The counties will do a 2% random hand count of ballots for each contest.
Upon completion of this process, the results are traditionally sealed in an envelope and given to the judge presiding over the recount. During a public hearing, the judge will unseal the results on the bench and declare the winners.
