The race for Pima Countyโs top cop is so close that the elections office is already planning to ask the Board of Supervisors for a recount.
As of Friday afternoon, Sheriff Chris Nanos, in his bid for reelection, led Republican challenger Heather Lappin by only 187 votes โ a margin of about 0.04%.
The margin is so tight that the Board of Supervisors will hold a special meeting Thursday in case the county Elections Department needs to request a recount.
State law requires a recount when a raceโs margin โis less than or equal to one-half of one percent of the number of votes cast,โ or 0.5%.
The boardโs special meeting date is essentially a placeholder in case a recount is needed, said Mark Evans, Pima Countyโs communications director.
There were an estimated 7,588 uncounted ballots in Pima County Thursday night, according to the Secretary of Stateโs Ballot Progress page.
Sheriff Chris Nanos has been leading his Republican challenger iHeather Lappin n the race to be Pima Countyโs top cop, but by increasingly smaller margins, unofficial results show. In fact, the race is so close, the county is preparing for a possible state-required recount.
Itโs unlikely that enough of the remaining will go to one of the candidates to avoid a mandatory recount, Evans said.
Elections Director Constance Hargrove says ballot counting could be finished by Saturday, Evans said, though it is possible it will not be completed until Sunday.
Some 482,785 votes in the race had been tallied as of 6 p.m. Thursday, according to unofficial results the county released on the Secretary of Stateโs Officeโs results page.
About 4,646 of the ballots still left to count are provisional ballots, which are issued when โadditional informationโ is needed, according to the Pima County Recorderโs Office. That means election workers are checking things like whether the voter is registered, is eligible to vote in the race, already voted with an early ballot or lacked the proper identification needed to vote at the polls.
Arizona law requires provisional ballots to be verified by Friday, Evans said, adding thereโs a chance some provisional ballots will need to be counted after the deadline. In 2020, there were 18,000 provisional ballots cast; a little more than 2,000 were rejected, he said.
Lappin, a jail commander has been gaining on Nanos since he started election night with a lead of over 25,000 votes when unofficial results were first released about an hour after the polls closed.
By Friday, Nanosโ lead narrowed to 8,161 votes. It got even tighter by Sunday, when he led by 6,456 votes.
And by Wednesday night, Nanosโ lead over Lappin dipped below 200.
