Pinal County election results: 500-vote discrepancy was 'human error'

Three months after a disastrous primary, Pinal County seemed to pull off a smooth Election Day in November.

But the county made errors in counting some ballots, officials said as a 500-vote discrepancy between certified election tallies and recounted results came to light on Thursday.

"The purpose of a recount is to ensure accurate vote totals are put forth, as it is reasonable to expect some level of human error in a dynamic, high-stress, deadline intensive process involving counting hundreds of thousands of ballots," county officials said in a statement. "The recount process did what it was supposed to do — it identified a roughly 500 vote undercount in the Pinal County election attributable to human error."

The county, which runs south and east of Maricopa County, is home to about 450,000 residents and has experienced rapid growth in recent years. About 140,000 voters cast ballots there in the November election.

The issues don't change the results of two races — for state attorney general and state schools superintendent — that were recounted statewide because of tight margins. And numerous officials said they believe the recount results are accurate.

Still, the newly counted ballots narrowed the lead of Attorney General-elect Kris Mayes, a Democrat, over Republican opponent Abe Hamadeh in one of the tightest races in Arizona history.

'Thankful':New Arizona Attorney General Mayes responds after recount affirms win

The new vote totals widened the winning margins of Superintendent-elect Tom Horne, a Republican, over incumbent Democrat Kathy Hoffman.

And the Pinal County discrepancy, which officials say can be chalked up to paper jams and staff error, put more egg on the face of a county that already had endured a tumultuous election cycle.

It's also fueled those who distrust the results. Hamadeh made clear hours after the recount results were released that he is not giving up his election challenge, issuing a statement calling for an inspection of "all of the ballots" and saying thousands of provisional ballots from the Nov. 8 election had not been counted.

People cast provisional ballots if there is doubt about their eligibility to vote. These ballots can remain uncounted if election officials determine the voter is not qualified to participate.

Pinal County's counting woes

The counting issue was discovered while officials were investigating an Election Day issue with voter check-ins at some polling sites, Elections Director Geraldine Roll wrote in a report on the recount to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

The check-in stations weren’t properly scanning some driver’s licenses, Roll wrote, so poll workers were calling voter registration officials to confirm that the voters were eligible to cast a ballot.

While looking into the issue, officials opened a box of ballots from a precinct. The canvass count reflected 422 ballots cast on Election Day from that precinct, but a hand count found 600. The officials selected other precincts to count and found other discrepancies.

By that time, the vote tallies already had been certified.

"One factor underlying this disparity is that the canvass was filed prior to taking an adequate opportunity to investigate any possible anomalies we could discern from polling place returns," Roll wrote.

Elections staff ruled out that additional ballots had been added to the locked boxes of precinct ballots by reviewing video footage, Roll said. The team that counted the ballots was bipartisan, and video footage showed no evidence that they purposely miscounted the votes.

The issue, Roll wrote, seemed to come down to paper jams that prevented some ballots from being read and operator errors. Mistakes made by staff while operating the county’s central tabulators resulted in at least one stack of ballots not getting counted and 63 ballots not being correctly sorted for adjudication, she wrote.

Undercount adds to rough election cycle

It isn't the first time this year that Pinal County has made news for its election administration.

In July, about 63,000 early ballots for the primary election were sent to voters with errors related to local races. Then, on the Aug. 2 primary election day, one-quarter of the county's polling places ran out of ballots.

The issues ultimately led to the firing of former Elections Director David Frisk, a $200,000 contract for temporary Elections Director Virginia Ross and an outside investigation into the problems, which revealed that the Elections Department was "chronically understaffed" with high turnover.

On Thursday, county officials were quick to note differences between the counting issue and problems during the August primary.

"This wasn't nearly as serious as the primary. In the primary, there were people who couldn't vote because of some snafus," Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff Serdy said. "With this, the votes were there. They just did not get counted initially, but then they did get counted."

He said Maricopa County saw more significant issues that disenfranchised voters, referring to the printer problems that plagued that county on Election Day and have been the subject of several lawsuits from unsuccessful candidates, including Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake.

"It didn't affect anything," Serdy said. "Everyone got to vote; that's the main thing."

Maricopa County officials have maintained that voters there were able to cast their ballots despite the printer problems.

Pinal County officials also noted in a statement that the total variance between the initial certification and recount results was 0.35%, less than the recount margin set by state law at 0.5%.

They wrote that the county would continue to investigate the problem and report findings and recommendations to supervisors, who "wholeheartedly believe in free and fair elections" and "will leave no stone unturned."

Serdy said he is confident in the accuracy of the recount results, as did Roll in her recount summary. Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh, who has previously criticized the use of tabulators in the county, said he does not believe the discrepancy is the result of voter fraud.

"We will open our books to whoever to see exactly how it happened," Serdy told The Arizona Republic on Thursday.

Republic reporter Tara Kavaler contributed reporting to this article.

Sasha Hupka covers Maricopa County, Pinal County and regional issues for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip about county government or county services? Reach her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @SashaHupka.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Pinal County: 500-vote gap in general election count was 'human error'