An agreement reached Tuesday at least temporarily resolves a dispute over 130 provisional ballots that could prove decisive in Arizona’s last undecided congressional race. A lawsuit filed on behalf of a voter who supported Republican challenger Martha McSally had sought to block counting results from the 130 ballots, alleging that they were mishandled by Cochise County elections workers who did not seal them in envelopes.
However, attorneys for the voter, the county and Democratic incumbent Ron Barber reached an agreement during a recess in a Cochise County Superior Court hearing in Bisbee.
The agreement calls for the disputed ballots to be tabulated and included in the county’s overall results but also recorded separately so that a new challenge can be filed if they are decisive to the 2nd Congressional District race’s final outcome, attorneys said.
Under the agreement accepted by Judge Wallace Hoggatt, the 130 ballots’ results submitted under seal to the court and the two campaigns but not released publicly, said Deputy County Attorney David Fifer. “There’s an issue of voter privacy.”
Full Article: Agreement in ballot dispute in Barber-McSally race.