Counties prepare to count CD2 ballots by hand

The Pima County and Cochise County elections departments finished the electronic recount of ballots Wednesday in the Congressional District 2 race.

Pima County scanned about 252,000 ballots — regular ballots, early ballots and provisional ballots — and Cochise County scanned about 37,000.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Next comes the process of counting a sample of the ballots by hand. Political party representatives will randomly select 5 percent of the polling place precincts for hand counting. Cochise County will start its hand count on Friday and Pima County will begin Monday.

Because there was less than one-tenth of 1 percent of votes separating Republican Martha McSally from Democrat Ron Barber, the law required a recount. McSally won 161 more votes than Barber in the original count. Results of the recount likely won’t be made public until Tuesday or Wednesday, when the counties turn over the numbers to Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who will send them to a Maricopa County Superior Court judge for certification.