CD 2 Update: Team McSally threatens lawsuit to stop counting the votes

After Cochise County submitted the last of its ballots late on Friday night, Martha McSally’s lead increased to 509.

Pima County counted 3,355 early ballots on Sunday. The Tucson Weekly reports, CD2 Update: McSally Now Leads Barber By 341 Votes:

Republican Martha McSally’s lead over Democratic Congressman Ron Barber in Congressional District 2 tightened to just 341 votes today after Pima County tabulated another 3,355 ballots.

More than 7,300 provisional ballots have been transferred to the Pima County Elections Department for verification, with an unknown number still in the possession of the Pima County Recorder’s Office, according to Pima County spokesman Mark B. Evans. Rodriguez expects to finalize the process for nearly all provisional ballots by tomorrow and the Election Department will likely be able to count most of them by the end of the day.

The Arizona Daily Star reported earlier that Pima County is preparing to count remaining ballots on Monday. Pima County won’t update vote totals until Monday:

Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson said his department is working this weekend but will spend the time preparing ballots to be counted. The counting of ballots will resume on Monday, he said.

Nelson said in a written statement that roughly 3,000 ballots have to be duplicated because they were ripped, stained or somehow marked in an unusual manner that a scanning machine wouldn’t be able to tabulate correctly.

“We have approximately 3,000 ballots that are in need of duplication so that the votes can be properly tallied. That duplication is being done under observation of the political parties,” Nelson wrote. “It is a time consuming process to transfer all votes from one ballot to another. Once that original duplication is performed by a two member board, the ballot is then reviewed for accuracy by an additional board.”

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The remaining 13,000 ballots yet to be counted in Pima County are a mix of about 3,000 remaining early ballots [apparently counted Sunday]  and about 9,800 provisional ballots.

The GOP and Martha McSally are now threatening a lawsuit over those 9,800 provisional ballots. Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly reports, McSally Campaign Moves To Toss Out Pima County Ballots:

In what remains one of the tightest congressional races in the country, Republican candidate Martha McSally’s legal team is taking steps to toss out the ballots of voters in Pima County.

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Attorney Eric H. Spencer, representing McSally and the Republican Party, emailed County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez this morning to demand that any provisional ballot form that was missing a signature from both a poll worker and a voter be set aside.

Rodriguez and Chris Roads, Pima County registrar of voters, said they would continue processing the provisional ballots.

“Martha McSally will do anything to stop Southern Arizonans from making their voice heard at the ballot box,” said Team Barber spokeswoman Ashley Nash-Hahn. “We’ve seen her tricks before, when she tried to throw out votes in Cochise County, and we aren’t surprised to see her desperate moves to silence the voters of Southern Arizona.”

McSally spokesman Patrick Ptak was not available for comment.

Team McSally took legal action to toss ballots from Latino precincts in her narrow 2012 loss.

In 2012, Barber won the provisional ballot count, capturing roughly 55 percent to McSally’s 45 percent.

Here’s Spencer’s first email:

Ms. Rodriguez and Mr. Nelson,

The Republican Party/McSally for Congress campaign (collectively “the campaign”) formally challenges the validity of all provisional ballots that have a provisional ballot form with a missing election official signature.

Page 152 of the Secretary of State’s Election Procedures Manual states that, prior to voting a provisional ballot: “An election official or voter completes a provisional ballot form. The voter and the election official sign the provisional ballot form.”

After voting the ballot, “[t]he voter will return the sealed envelope to the election official, who will verify the envelope is properly filled out, signed and sealed.” Id.

Accordingly, the campaign respectfully requests the following immediate relief:

· The recorder’s office instruct staff to not verify any provisional ballots with a missing election official signature on the provisional ballot form;

· The recorder’s office cease transmitting any previously-verified provisional ballots to the elections department, pending a review of the provisional ballot forms for missing election official signatures;

· The elections department cease processing any provisional ballots or transmitting any provisional ballots for counting, pending a review of the provisional ballot forms for missing election official signatures; and

· The recorder’s office and elections department collect and embargo any provisional ballots that contain a provisional ballot form with missing election official signatures, pending a final legal review and determination in conjunction with the County Attorney’s office.

Given the exigency of this matter, please confirm by 10:15 a.m. that the recorder’s office and elections department will immediately implement these prophylactic procedures.

Here is the response from Roads:

Mr. Spencer,

In response to your challenge, the Pima County Recorder’s Office will not stop processing the provisional ballots. Whether or not the poll worker signed the provisional is clearly identifiable from a simple examination of the provisional ballot form whether or not the provisional is processed by the Recorder’s Office. Therefore our processing has no bearing as to your challenge. In other words, the fact that we processed the provisional form will not impact your ability to proceed with your challenge. The Recorder’s Office is under a statutory deadline to complete processing the provisional ballots and we will continue to proceed toward meeting that deadline.

Please note that your extremely short deadlines for responses are unreasonable. Under Arizona law we have a reasonable time to respond to public records requests and other matters. A deadline of less than 30 minutes is far less than reasonable.

Both candidates have attorneys on site in our office observing our processes and tracking the work we are doing.

Dylan Smith of the Tucson Sentinel adds, McSally threatens suit to stop provisional count:

McSally is targeting ballots from six Pima County precincts, five of them within CD 2, Democratic Party sources with knowledge of the vote count said.

Five of those precincts voted overwhelmingly for President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012 (precincts 53, 57, 58, 100, and 113) while the precinct outside the district swung for the Republicans.

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[Pima County Recorder] F. Ann Rodriguez said 9,254 provisional ballots had been checked once, with 5,312 having been rechecked and transferred to the Elections Department for counting.

There were 693 provisionals that were classified as “non-verified” but needing a second review, she said.

Note: If you were a conditional provisional voter on Tuesday, you need to bring your receipt and verification documents to the Recorder’s Office by this Wednesday for your ballot to be counted. Every vote is critical in this race. (It may be close enough to trigger an automatic recount).

So McSally is threatening to sue to stop counting the votes while she is ahead. This shows real respect for the voters of her district and the democratic process, doesn’t it? Why don’t we just dispense with voting altogether and you can declare yourself the Queen? The authoritarianism of these shameless Tea-Publicans knows no limits.