PHOENIX – A recount of nearly 220,000 ballots cast in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District will begin later this week after the results of the Nov. 4 election were formally certified Monday.
Secretary of State Ken Bennett, Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne signed the official election canvass in a formal ceremony at the Capitol. Because the vote difference between Democratic Rep. Ron Barber and Republican Martha McSally is less than one-tenth of 1 percent, lawyers for the state are getting a judge’s order for Cochise and Pima counties to conduct a recount. Barber trails McSally by 161 votes.
That machine recount will happen over the next two weeks, and a random hand count of 5 percent of the precincts will be done as well to ensure that the machine count is accurate, said Brad Nelson, Pima County’ elections director. If those hand recounts don’t match the machine counts within a certain amount, another 5 percent of the ballots will be hand-counted, until the variance between the machine and hand counts is within legal margins.
“In theory we could end up hand counting the entire election if we continue to be outside the variance,” Nelson said.
