PHOENIX, AZ —Republican and Democratic officials in Arizona came to an agreement Friday that allows the state’s ongoing vote count in a closely watched Senate race to continue, settling a lawsuit four county Republican parties had filed to stop the laborious vote count. The settlement allows rural voters an extra chance to fix problems with their ballots.
The settlement was technically between Republicans and the state’s county recorders, but Democrats agreed to it as it was announced in a Phoenix courtroom Friday afternoon. Arizona’s 14 counties now have until Nov. 14 to address the issue.
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has jumped into a slight, 9,600 vote lead over Republican Martha McSally in the midst of the slow vote count, but their seesaw battle for the lead is expected to continue.
The seat opened when Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, decided not to seek another term after he realized his criticism of President Trump would make his re-election impossible. Whoever prevails in the race will make history as Arizona’s first female U.S. senator.
Finishing the vote count could take days. About 75 percent of Arizona voters mail in their ballots, but they must go through the laborious signature confirmation process. Only after the signatures are verified can the signature-bearing envelopes be opened and tabulated. Recorders can ask questions of voters to verify signatures.
Without evidence Friday, Trump claimed election fraud because of some of the problems with the signatures. “Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption — Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!”
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The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday night by the Republican parties of Yuma, Navajo, Apache and Maricopa counties, doesn’t allege election fraud. Rather it challenges the way county recorders verify signatures on absentee ballots dropped off at polls on Election Day. It claims county recorders don’t follow a uniform standard that allows voters to adjust problems with their mail-in ballots, and that two counties improperly allow fixes to occur after Election Day.
The GOP threatened to sue over the issue before Tuesday’s midterm election, a tactic Democrats countered was an attempt to suppress the vote in the Republican-leaning state, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Republicans said it was about following the law and getting a timely tally of the votes.
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If the signatures on file and those on an early ballot don’t match, some county recorders believe they can contact voters by phone to verify they signed the ballot envelope, which is required by law, The Arizona Republic reported.
Arguing signature verifications should stop when the polls close, the county Republican parties are seeking an injunction to stop the vote counts. A hearing is scheduled in Maricopa County Superior Court Friday morning, but the parties are trying to get an expedited hearing ahead of the release of the latest tallies Thursday evening.
The vote totals in two large urban areas, Phoenix and Tucson, are at the center of the lawsuit. Democrats believe the uncounted urban ballots dropped off shortly before Election Day favor Sinema.
“A foundational principle of American democracy and our justice system is that all votes are treated equally,” Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines said in a statement to The Arizona Republic.
“This equal protection under the law is enshrined in our Constitution. It is not fair nor just that voters in one county are treated differently under the law from other voters in Arizona. This suit seeks immediate redress of any inequality between ballots cast across Arizona. We stand behind our local county parties demand for equal treatment.”
If the votes are tossed out, Democrats are prepared to fight.
“The Republican party is doing everything it can to silence thousands of Arizonans who already cast their ballots,” Arizona Democratic Party chair Felecia Rotellini told The Republic “That’s absolutely wrong, and the Arizona Democratic Party is fully prepared to fight to ensure that every last Arizonan has their vote counted.”
Election law attorney Andy Gordon, who represents Democrats, called the lawsuit “classic Republican 11th-hour stuff.
“There are counties all over the state who have been doing this forever … and so now that we’ve got a different regime down here in Maricopa County, and we’ve got a really, really, really tight Senate race, suddenly Republicans say, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this, we need to call it off,’ ” Gordon told The Republic.
The lawsuit offers a window into the complexities of mail ballots and the so-called “late earlies” that arrive just before Election Day and regularly gum up the state’s vote counting system. Sluggish vote counts are a perennial issue for Arizona, but the issue hasn’t gained attention nationally until this year, when the Sinema-McSally race was one of the most closely watched in the country.
Turnout in the midterm election was around 60 percent, which rivals presidential election years, and county recorders were overloaded with uncounted ballots. McSally ran into the issue in 2012, when it took The Associated Press 12 days to name her as the loser because the vote margin was so narrow and the counting process was laboriously slow. When McSally ran successfully in 2014, the election wasn’t called for more than a month.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
Photos of Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, left, and Republican Martha McSally at a pre-election debate by Matt York/Associated Press