Lawyers for U.S. Rep. Ron Barber asked Pima County on Tuesday to delay finalizing the canvass of the Nov. 4 election, with the campaign saying it had sworn statements from 132 voters that they were disenfranchised by poll-worker errors. Pima County rejected the request and finalized the canvass of votes at midday Tuesday. Barber, a Democrat, is locked in one of the closest elections in Arizona history with Republican challenger Martha McSally, whose lead in the race is a minuscule 161 votes out of more than 219,000 cast. If nothing changes, the race will head to Arizona’s first-ever general-election recount for Congress. A recount will not start before Dec. 1.
Barber’s attorney, Kevin J. Hamilton of Perkins Coie, said the campaign will fight for all registered voters’ ballots to be counted, but repeatedly stopped short of saying the campaign would file suit to force them to be. Most of the 132 voters whose cases were raised by the Barber campaign either cast provisional ballots at the wrong polling places, or had their early ballots thrown out because their signatures did not match what was on file.
The Barber campaign is delivering a similar request to stop the process in Cochise County, but Hamilton said he did not know how many ballots the campaign found issues with there. Cochise County is expected to finalize its canvass Thursday, Hamilton said.
Hamilton said the next stop would be to ask the state to delay its certification of the vote count. The state canvass is scheduled to be completed Dec. 1, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Full Article: Barber’s bid to delay vote canvass rejected.