Media Alert: Pima County Sheriff's race headed to recount
PIMA COUNTY, Nov. 19 – The Pima County Board of Supervisors has called for a special meeting on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 10 a.m. to recommend a petition to Superior Court to conduct a recount for the office of County Sheriff.
That is a procedural step, required by state statute (A.R.S. § 16-662), toward an automatic recount in the state of Arizona when the margin of victory is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total votes for the top two candidates or ballot measure.
The Board of Supervisors will meet earlier that same day to approve the canvass of the General Election, which must be done before the petition for a recount.
When the Pima County Elections Department completed tabulation of the General Election, Democrat incumbent Chris Nanos led Republican Heather Lappin by 495 votes, or just over 0.1% -- 243,860 to 243,365 – out of 487,225 ballots cast between them.
“Once we have the court order, the recount can begin,” said Elections Director Constance Hargrove. “We must run all ballots through the tabulator and adjudicate any ballots for Sheriff. There were 518,466 ballots casts in the election, which equates to over 1 million cards. It will likely take about 14 calendar days to complete the recount.”
Results will be published when the recount is complete.
The Elections Department’s tabulation machines passed a post-election logic and accuracy test on Nov. 18.
For the recount, the Secretary of State has delegated the oversight duties of programming and logic-and-accuracy testing to the Board of Supervisors. The Elections Department will program and test the equipment before beginning the recount. Elections will run the paper ballots through the tabulation machines, which are programmed to only read the recounted race.
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