Democrat Asks For More Votes To Be Counted In Arizona Congressional District

By Kate Sheehy
November 18, 2014

The Pima County Board of Supervisors denied a request from Democrat Ron Barber’s campaign Tuesday to delay the certification of election results.

Republican challenger Martha McSally won the 2nd Congressional District by a slim 161 votes.

An attorney for the Barber campaign has asked that about 130 rejected early and provisional ballots be counted.

Each county has to canvass or certify its election results and then send them to the Secretary of State for confirmation. State law requires that a county take no more than 20 days after the election to do this.

“I think it’s their obligation under the law to certify the results are true and accurate and I don’t think they can do that with the results in front of them,” said Kevin Hamilton, an attorney for the Barber Campaign. 

Hamilton said some votes in Pima County weren’t included for various reasons; a person was sent to the wrong polling place or told they needed to vote provisionally at the last minute.

A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office said the canvass is the certification process by election officials and it is not an opportunity to check for errors.

The attornery said he plans to deliver a similar request to Cochise County which is also included in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District. Cochise County said it is working on its canvass now and are planning to have it completed by Thursday. It is unknown how many ballots the campaign will contest in Cochise. 

Hamilton did not say on Tuesday if further legal action would be taken to have the votes counted in Pima County. He said the next step would be to ask the state to delay its certification of the vote. 

State law requires a recount if a candidate wins by fewer than 200 votes, but this can’t take place until after Dec. 1. This is when the state will release its official election results.