Here We Go Again in Arizona
[guest post by JVW]
Like in Florida, they’re still counting ’em in Arizona, but as of this evening Kyrsten Sinema has pulled into a 9,600 vote lead over Martha McSally. Here is what is apparently left to be counted, before we jump into the inevitable recount:
Maricopa County has 345,000 ballots to be counted. That includes 150,000 early ballots received before Election Day and 195,000 ballots that were either early ballots dropped off on Election Day, provisional ballots, or out-of-precinct ballots cast on Election Day.
Pima County has 54,000 votes to be counted. This includes about 36,000 early ballots and 18,000 provisional votes. Pima County Registrar of Voters Chris Roads said the Recorder’s Office will begin processing provisional ballots Friday morning.
Pinal County has an estimated 31,800 early ballots still to count, said Michele Forney, elections director. There are 6,800 provisionals left to count, she said, plus about 25,000 early ballots.
Coconino County has about 10,600 votes left to count, per the elections department there. Those votes won’t get counted until Friday.
Ballots remaining to be counted in the rest of the state total 4,600 in Apache County, 1,700 in Cochise County, 580 in La Paz, an estimated 8,000 in Mohave County, 4,000 in Navajo County, 2,200 in Santa Cruz County, 6,100 in Yavapai County and 3,100 in Yuma County, according to Garrett Archer of the Secretary of State’s office.
I don’t have the time or inclination to try to read the tea leaves regarding the remaining votes. Just before the election, NRO’s Jim Gerghaty had reported that registered Republicans in the state had exceeded registered Democrats in early voting by a margin of 100,000 which would seem to bode well for McSally, provided that these are the “early ballots” to which the article above refers. But all conventions seem to be out the window these days.
The first article I linked to above has an interesting bit on the two candidates’ history with razor-thin vote margins. In Sinema’s first Congressional run in 2012 she led slightly at the end of election day, but the race wasn’t finalized until that Friday when her opponent conceded. For her part, McSally won her Congressional seat in 2014 by beating the incumbent Democrat by 167 votes out of 220,000 cast, a margin that necessitated some legal fights. Could we be in store for more of the same?
It’s now quite possible that the GOP goes into the Mississippi run-off election next month holding only 51 Senate seats, instead of the 53 (even 54) that we once expected. Hang on to your hats.
– JVW
Cripes, how much of this can we take?
JVW (42615e) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:17 pmI blame
nk (dbc370) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:26 pmglobal warmingclimate change.JVW,
they’re trying to break the country so things are proceeding as planned.
NJRob (1d7532) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:33 pmthey’re trying to break the country so things are proceeding as planned.
No, I’m not ready to allege wrongdoing just yet. I only posted this to show how incredibly divided our country is right now politically.
JVW (42615e) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:38 pmFirst they came for the Jews.
mg (9e54f8) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:50 pmOf course they are they are either stealing outright or making the eventual result illegitimate,
Narciso (710fa2) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:50 pmJVW,
the track record speaks for itself.
NJRob (1d7532) — 11/8/2018 @ 9:53 pmI think if we’re going to allow early voting for elections, those votes ought to be counted and announced immediately. What’s the sense in taking a ballot 7 or even 10 days before the election and then just sitting on it until after the election is over? It leads to ridiculous results like this, and it opens up too many opportunities for chicanery. I mean, Arizona has 500,000 uncounted votes! How could we have even expected that we would know a winner until several days afterwards?
JVW (42615e) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:00 pmThere is something odd here the GOP ballot were trending ahead in the early voting certainly in Florida now they flip
Narciso (710fa2) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:04 pmVoting on election day worked forever, but it was too hard to steal elections so things needed to change.
Other nations much poorer than our own use identification and ensure legitimate ballots are the only ones cast. Our left refuses to do the same. The reason as to why is clear.
NJRob (1d7532) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:10 pmWell where does the impetus for early voting come from cloward and piven,
Narciso (710fa2) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:12 pmMcSally lost in 2012 (to the guy she beat in 2014) by 2,454 votes. It’s her lot in life to be in close elections. This one wouldn’t be close but the Trumpies stayed home because she beat their primary candidates.
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:23 pmVoting here in NM is painless. You go to any voting site, they print you a custom PAPER ballot, you mark it with a pen, and they feed it into the counting machine right there.
WHY is this so difficult?
Advertisement: I and 5 guys I know will happily take any reasonable contract to fix your state’s voting system, so long as we can throw out every last piece of decrepit equipment you own.
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:32 pmI think if we’re going to allow early voting for elections, those votes ought to be counted and announced immediately
They can be counted then the result can be encrypted with keys provided by both sides until it’s needed.
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:34 pmdemocrats contacting provisional ballot voters to get their votes counted. republican county recorders throw them away plus all dropped off mail in ballots not counted by 7:00pm election day. democrats count republicans don’t count that is why sinema is beating mcsalley.
az jay (f11f0d) — 11/8/2018 @ 11:54 pmAnd Putin smiled… again.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:56 amI might as well chime in to point out that in Florida, the deadline for providing ID or whatever else is needed to turn a provisional ballot into a valid ballot was sometime yesterday, Thursday. So a truly final count by definition could not be available until yesterday PM.
There is something odd here the GOP ballot were trending ahead in the early voting certainly in Florida now they flip
You are assuming that all GOP voters actually voted GOP.
kishnevi (2a9a02) — 11/9/2018 @ 4:47 amGet ready for Senator Sinema. The Arizona GOP filed a lawsuit to literally suppress votes, I assume because they’re aware that the late mail-ins in four counties are not good news for McSally.
Paul Montagu (4575b4) — 11/9/2018 @ 5:07 am16… maybe it’s just gas, DCSCA
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/9/2018 @ 5:13 am“I retired him. I’m very proud of it.”
– Donald Trump on the previous (Republican) holder of this seat, with a voting record more conservative than Ted Cruz
(Just in case you have any doubt about whose interests Donald Trump is looking out for)
Dave (9664fc) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:02 am“(Just in case you have any doubt about whose interests Donald Trump is looking out for)”
Dave (9664fc) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:02 am
Unlike Flake, not Blasey Ford’s or Coons’.
Munroe (54af9a) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:07 amThere’s a reason I call him Fidel o flake I suspect he is part of the sabotage in arizona.
Narciso (2771dd) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:10 amyou die hard conservatives can vote for Flake when he runs for president. Being conservative like a flake is entertaining.
mg (9e54f8) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:28 amThe worst thing about Arizona was McCain voting democrat on Obamacare.
mg (9e54f8) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:33 amGet ready for Senator Sinema. The Arizona GOP filed a lawsuit to literally suppress votes, I assume because they’re aware that the late mail-ins in four counties are not good news for McSally.
Are they votes though? But spin away with your half-truths.
There are rules for mail-in ballots. In those counties they are ignoring the rules to get more votes, which they ALSO know are not good for McSally. Which is why they are doing it.
In law-abiding counties, where the votes favor the law-abiding candidate, they aren’t cheating. Which is why the decent candidate is “losing.”
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/9/2018 @ 8:59 amHe was also pleased that other Republicans who didn’t “love” him enough lost to Democrats. He tells us rather clearly that he defines good and bad on the basis of his own ego and self-interest, and evidently he can’t see why anyone would think there ought to be a higher measure.
And to those who think I’m obsessed with Trump: I see people on other websites every day, sniping at any writer who says anything even slightly or indirectly critical of Trump. Usually there’s no effort to refute anything factually, but only to express hostility toward those who don’t revere Trump uncritically. Some people appear to have no higher purpose in their lives than to defend the sacred honor of Donald J. Trump. It’s very weird.
Radegunda (9e0773) — 11/9/2018 @ 9:35 amhttps://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1060924708101644288
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 9:48 am25… the obvious isn’t obvious to the willfully ignorant, KevinM.
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 10:06 amThe Al Franken method, keep finding votes till you have enough.
I was there working on a project when it happened, the local libs were actually boasting about it.
harkin (141030) — 11/9/2018 @ 10:18 am29 — and Christine Gregoire for the governorship of Washington State before that. Dino Rossi won the first count, and then a recount narrowed the gap. Gregoire demanded another recount. Speaking to a crowd of supporters, she said: “We can make up that difference!” It’s conceivable that she only meant to say that another recount might go further in the same direction as the first recount, but she sounded awfully confident that it would.
Radegunda (9e0773) — 11/9/2018 @ 10:28 amIIRC, it was only King County that Gregoire was concerned about recounting. At least that’s where more ballots just happened to be found when needed.
Radegunda (9e0773) — 11/9/2018 @ 10:34 amThe reason not to do this is that knowledge of how the election is going can impact voting behavior. If you think it’s already decided than there isn’t much reason to take time to go vote. As the value of you time (to you) goes up this becomes more and more true. I think something like this happened with a presidential election in the past but I’m too lazy to google it. IIRC the Major networks announced who was going to win way early and a lot of people in western states didn’t bother to vote.
Time123 (b4d075) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:23 amV
If you want to eliminate mail in ballots you’ll have the biggest impact on the elderly, who tend to favor the GOP. Requiring in person voting would tend to favor the left, not the right.
I suspect this is why I see so little discussion about absentee voter fraud. The left doesn’t think voter fraud is a major problem and the right doesn’t want to make it harder for a group that favors them to vote.
If you’re going to be strict about ID requirements you’re going to get more people that have a legitimate right to vote, but don’t have the paperwork. I feel into that camp at one people before my photo ID was from the wrong state. That means there will be more of this.
Time123 (b4d075) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:29 amOne of the problems with “voting” is that in most states, each county can have their own ballot/election system. Some states have standardized on a set of options for counties to select from, but actual implementation and training is woefully inadequate and mostly underfunded, and poll workers being on the bottom of the pyramid. Georgia precincts where the building was foreclosed, didn’t have keys, didn’t have the extension cords, that is just completely idiotic outcome, and those aren’t political party problems, that’s just plain lack of planning, at all.
Florida, being filled with Florida Man (male and female) seems to have a distinctly worse problem than most. You have incompetent officials; Scott can complain about Snipes all he wants, but both he and the SoS (both Republicans) could have removed her prior to this, so he needs to swallow some of the blame, and you have voters that are mentally…challenged, and can’t read a ballot and color in a big box. Then the poll worker can’t feed the machine because the paper swells when its humid, in Florida, who knew. I will forever chalk up Florida’s odd behavior to Florida Man over conspiracy, Florida Man is a powerful phenomenon, and very difficult to correct.
Arizona’s drop off signature standard is odd, that just doesn’t seem to be a good way to ensure anything, it’s just asking for infinite problems. That should be the last thing you use to validate a voter.
I’m for Voter ID, as long as citizens have access to civil ID’s, I get the issues in states where the only ID’s are Real ID compliant, where the old and poor may have issues with getting the 3 different ID document types, but at some point, you have to have an ID in this world. I don’t even know how it would be possible to survive without one. So have a graduated ID, that won’t count for TSA restrictions, but is affordable. In our state, you could get a drivers license for $43, or a state ID for $23, add $5 for Real ID Travel ID, and $5 for each additional endorsement, motorcycle, CDL. That seems to be pretty logical.
I lived in Nevada for a decade, and the electronic system they put in place in the 2000’s worked fantastically, and with early and same day voting being at the grocery, mall, library, etc for more than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a month before the election. You have to be actively trying to avoid voting, you couldn’t make it any easier, and still turnout is terrible.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (68437d) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:00 pmTrump can’t even comment on the Florida election scandal without turning it into a boast: that HE won Florida by so much in 2016 that Broward Co. couldn’t cheat him out of a win. Which is his way of saying he’s much greater than DeSantis or Scott. Never mind those very thin margins in other key states, or the millions more popular votes that Crooked Hillary (formerly known as “terrific” and a ‘really good” person) received nationwide.
Radegunda (9e0773) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:04 pmIn georgia, Stacey Abrams needs around 60% of the putstanding vote to force arunoff.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:07 pmHer predecessor Miriam oliphant was worse, she was picked in a low turn out primary in 2000, in the midst of a no name storm, the id excuse is just that, you need some for everything else,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:07 pmDeems are always complaining when they don’t get their way, whether its the design of the ballot, the company behind the voting machine, whether it has paper trail.
narciso (d1f714) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:10 pm80% in az vote by mail and republican vote is normally higher then democrats who vote in person on election day so to help republicans stop people voting on election day.
az jay (eef85b) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:16 pmTime123 (b4d075) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:23 am
I think this was 1980, when Jimmy Carter conceded before California’s polls had closed
If that is correct.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:29 pmhttps://static.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/recount-600×401.jpg
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:29 pmRadegunda (9e0773) — 11/9/2018 @ 9:35 am
That was not the case in Ohio. But maybe Elizabeth Warren was the issue there.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:31 pmThese are ballots that arrived on time and are subject to signature confirmation. That’s neither “spin” nor “half-truths”. The Arizona GOP is seeking to cut off the signature confirmation process before election workers could legally finish their work.
Link. It is literally vote suppression by the GOP via this lawsuit, and it should get tossed.
Paul Montagu (e7d63b) — 11/9/2018 @ 12:49 pm> those aren’t political party problems, that’s just plain lack of planning, at all.
i think this is a good way to look at a lot of the voting problems — this isn’t partisan skullduggery, it’s just bureaucratic incompetence.
there was a lot of screaming about voting machines in tx which were changing votes. it turns out that the issue is that on some of the machines if you select a straight-party ticket, and then make *any sort* of selection while the *screen is rendering*, the software loses your straight-party-ticket selection. this is an idiotic javascript bug. i’ve *fixed* this bug in other contexts.
but the bug exists, and the secretary of state has no authority under state law to demand that it be fixed; the legislature wrote specific requirements into the law and as long as those specific requirements are met, the regulators have no authority to add new requirements.
this isn’t a partisan problem; this is a combination of bad software, a lack of incentive for production of good software, and an inability to demand bug fixes.
*many* of the things that both sides claim are partisan skullduggery end up being things like this: badly thought out processes, implemented badly.
the broward county undervotes seem to be a symptom of this: the ballot design caused people to overlook the senate race. oops.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:01 pmExcept there is a history of mishandling most recently in 2016,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:10 pmFWIW, being a lifelong Seattle area resident, I followed the Rossi-Gregoire recount closely, and Stefan Sharkansky at Sound Politics was invaluable. I met him at a blogger meet-up at some brewery in Pike Place Market. Nice guy. To me, there’re still some questions about ineligible ballots in King County that were counted in Gregoire’s favor, and county officials did a lot of stonewalling, so much so that Sharkansky got a nice settlement in the aftermath.
Paul Montagu (e7d63b) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:11 pm“this isn’t a partisan problem; this is a combination of bad software, a lack of incentive for production of good software, and an inability to demand bug fixes.“
I respectfully disagree. This is a problem with specific personnel who are either:
a. wholly partisan and bent
b. intensely incompetent
c. Or all of the above
“the broward county undervotes seem to be a symptom of this: the ballot design caused people to overlook the senate race. oops.”
Difficult to mitigate stupidity.
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:15 pmHaiku: in the specific case of the voting machines that have a javascript bug that overrides your straight ticket selection if you do anything while the screen is rendering, how do you attribute it to wither partisan malice or incompetence on the part of the election officials?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 1:23 pmWhy are they and maybe one other county ALWAYS the problem? What is so flipping unique about them? Why can’t/don’t they adhere to the laws? Decades of excuses and alibis is what they are good for.
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 2:07 pmColonel Haiku — i’m speaking specifically of an issue which was reported in multiple counties in Texas *prior* to the election. I’m not talking about what’s happening in Florida.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:19 pmHere’s another example of just sheer incompetence that I doubt was partisan:
https://medium.com/@varineq/you-might-have-noticed-that-porter-county-indiana-still-had-0-reporting-for-the-2018election-as-9c5de55afaec?fbclid=IwAR2jwW415OJyVfa8oTfmYK1z64XAL5wQsWntqMzCyEHLPUy0b0tSHBO9yls
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:25 pmHere’s an example of malfeasance… https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2018/11/09/bottom-line-in-florida-broward-county-election-officials-are-violating-the-law-n2535655
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:38 pmI’m speaking of attempts to flip a Senate race and race for Governor of the state of Florida.
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:40 pmhttps://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1061004374523199488
Colonel Haiku (f2bc98) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:41 pmYeah, the Broward Elections people are not complying with the law that requires 45 minute updates (i assume only during specified hours?) as they count. They should comply.
Meanwhile, a sitting Congressman had his absentee ballot not counted because the elections office said the signature didn’t match.
https://twitter.com/PatrickMurphyFL/status/1060925571582971904
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:41 pmSo, just to be clear, you’re quoting something from the middle of a comment that was *explicitly* about a situation in Texas, and trying to refute it with evidence about Florida?
#47 respectfully disagreed with #44 (by quotation to #44), and … #44 was explicitly about Texas.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 3:43 pmIn Clermont County outside of Cincinnati, they had a guy getting on all the TV stations complaining about the machine changing his votes. Turns out the county had added a check that if, when you scan your form, and you hadn’t checked all the boxes, the scanner actively asked you to confirm that you did want to skip ballot question X. But since the doofus didn’t bother to actually read the prompt, the instructions on the form, or listen to the poll workers, he left and called all the news folks.
Sometimes the conspiracy is among the dunce brigade to out-stupid their neighbors.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (4a12e8) — 11/9/2018 @ 4:33 pmwell sinema the Taliban (redacted) is ahead by 22,500 votes, that tells you everything,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/9/2018 @ 4:49 pmSo there’s an interesting issue coming out of Arizona: how should it be handled, when the elections office thinks the signature on an absentee envelope doesn’t match the signature on the registration card?
I mean, that might be fraud. But it might also be someone voting while sick and therefore their signature doesn’t look like it normally does. Or someone who developed Parkinson’s after they registered, and their signature will never look like it does on the card. (Plus, nobody has a copy of their registration card, because they mail it in and never see it again, so it’s not even like they can check).
You’d think that the elections office should contact the voter, explain the problem, and give them a chance to (a) confirm it’s their ballot and (b) fix the signature. Sadly, not every state does this. (why not?)
In Arizona, one of the lawsuits was filed because some counties are allowing a window *after the election* during which absentee ballots returned on election day can be saved in this way. Other counties are saying that you have until election day to fix the issue, which means ballots submitted on election day can’t be fixed.
I can’t see anything in the state’s election law which answers the question of how long a voter has to do this, although admittedly my search has been cursory. The lawsuit was based on federal equal protection grounds — different rules in different counties — and has been settled by an agreement that all counties will use the you-can-cure-within-some-period-of-time-after-election-day rule, allowing all voters the opportunity to cure problematic signatures.
Granted that the same rule should apply across the state, and granted that the state code is irritatingly silent on the issue of how this should be handled, is there any good reason to object to this process, or to allowing absentee ballots returned on election day to have their signature fixed if an election officer thinks there isn’t a match?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 5:47 pmColonel Haiku,
the link to 102.141(4)(b) says that all results *which have been tabulated* must be reported at 30 minutes and then, as tabulation proceeds, every 45 minutes thereafter. It does not require a report of the number of uncounted ballots (“all tabulated vote-by-mail results” self evidently does not include anything about untabulated results). It doesn’t mean that all ballots must be tabulated within 30 minutes, because (a) that’s physically impossible and (b) if it did, then the update-every-fortyfive-minutes clause would be meaningless.
Did Broward report the results it had counted half an hour after the polls closed? Has it been updating with the current tabulation?
Somehow the idea has gotten out that this requires the publication of a count of the untabulated ballots. I agree that doing so is good policy and they *should* do so, but this language doesn’t require it.
> The canvassing board shall report all early voting and all tabulated vote-by-mail results to the Department of State within 30 minutes after the polls close. Thereafter, the canvassing board shall report, with the exception of provisional ballot results, updated precinct election results to the department at least every 45 minutes until all results are completely reported. The supervisor of elections shall notify the department immediately of any circumstances that do not permit periodic updates as required. Results shall be submitted in a format prescribed by the department.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:04 pmBeing a Broward voter, I don’t think ballot design was a real problem. It didn’t confuse me.
Also if someone voted inperson, the machines had an alert which asked voters if they intentionally meant not to vote in a specific race…and forced them to accept undervoting before it finished scanning the ballot.
Also remember of the three races which got more votes than the US Senate, two had African American candidates, and one had a candidate who was from Broward. All three could reasonably get votes that an older white guy with no connections (Nelson) to Broward would not get
kishnevi (bec396) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:06 pmThe Arizona GOP just won a lawsuit for county registrars to “rectify” signature mismatches.
The funny part is the AZ-GOP was championing limiting the rectification prior to the election to election day only, but the rural voters, supposedly an AZ-GOP stronghold, have been more greatly impacted, at least it was arguably to the judge, so the hope is that the rural vote will override the city folk. But who’d have thunk that depending on who’s winning, the AZ-GOP and FL-GOP are arguing the opposite side of “count the votes” argument.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (4a12e8) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:10 pmThat’s a very good point you make in your second paragraph above, kishnevi. A favorite son will outperform the generic ballot. A sterling example is our Jesse White who routinely gets 10% more than any other candidate from either party.
nk (dbc370) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:13 pmColonel Klink: I was talking about the AZ case. Maricopa and a few others were allowing post-election-day rectification, other counties weren’t. The state GOP sued on equal protection grounds, and the result was a statewide rule requiring all counties to allow post-election rectification.
I think that’s the right outcome on policy grounds, and I can’t find anything in AZ law to either contradict or mandate it.
I think the AZ GOP’s original position — rectification only before election day — was the *wrong* outcome, and i’m glad the court went with this outcome instead.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:19 pmA general proposition to be mulled over
Voter ID laws are based on the premise that US citizens who can not meet various bureacratic paperworks must be denied the right to vote for the greater good of vote integrity.
A former Facebook friend of mine was a Tea Party Republican who was firmly supportive of Voter ID laws. He lived in Ohio. Ohio passed such a law. His wife next election was forced to vote provisionally because when she married him she never got around to updating the voting record. Hoist on one’s own petard. (To his credit he scrambled to help her get the right paperwork but did not blame a law he had supported.)
kishnevi (bec396) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:20 pmYes rules are made to enforce general principles, (I’m willing to bet the observers pushed provisionals on practically every occasion)
Narciso (9b6052) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:31 pmI would put “won” in scare quotes, because this was a major loss. There’s no other way to interpret the ruling except that this was a complete backfire on the Arizona GOP. Now every county in the state has until November 14 to verify signatures. Process inequality solved!
Paul Montagu (4575b4) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:36 pmThere’s also the Constitutional fact that states have the right (States’ Rights!) to let anybody they want vote as long as the voters for the largest chamber of the state legislature are also allowed to vote in Congressional and Senate elections.
nk (dbc370) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:37 pmSo did they shoot themselves in the foot, magic rightball says probably.
Narciso (9b6052) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:39 pmThat’s right. Although, these counties have been following the same internal rules for a few cycles. The SoS’s office should have either clarified the state laws if it was confusing, or corrected the action from past elections via education and potentially suggesting the legislature fix the law for clarities sake.
But hey, you don’t always fix every bug, hence MVP product design and agile development are the modern SOP for tech.
I still don’t think matching a signature is a great way to “verify” much of anything. There’s a reason credit card receipts don’t need to be signed anymore. Restaurants don’t count as it’s not the signature they’re after. Something that’s Notarized sure, but that really isn’t the signature, that’s the Notary certifying you’re ID. But at the end of the day, absentee and mail-in ballots are always going to have some trust issues. As more and more people move to mail in voting, that kind of defeats the reasoning for Voter ID rules, as mail-in fraud is much more likely than a dude getting bussed in to vote as a dead guy, you know, the thing that isn’t an actual problem. The logistics just don’t work.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:51 pm“Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines accused Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes of destroying evidence, in the midst of the ongoing vote count in the razor-thin contest for a U.S. Senate seat between Congresswomen Martha McSally (R.) and Krysten Sinema (D.).
Late Thursday night, new updates from many of the recorders across the state shot Sinema past McSally to take a roughly 9,600 vote lead, whereas just the night before, it was McSally who led the contest by about 17,000 votes.
After the Thursday night update, roughly 400,000 votes were still to be counted, the bulk of which were in Maricopa, which is leaning toward Sinema this cycle. It was the Maricopa update which provided the new lead for Sinema.
The accusations by Lines dovetail with a lawsuit filed Thursday by four county divisions of the Republican Party against all of the recorders in the state as well as the secretary of state.”
https://freebeacon.com/politics/arizona-gop-accuses-dem-recorder-destroying-evidence/?fbclid=IwAR38IiKwOATFhVC1mjSVnV6k618x4h-r1r5jaKvi1EnTLa3qfVyKsB1ILSs
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/9/2018 @ 9:05 pmcounty recorders are allowed to ask voters to verify their identity, up to five days after the polls close in some counties.
Does anyone see the issue here? Hands?
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:49 pmGranted that the same rule should apply across the state, and granted that the state code is irritatingly silent on the issue of how this should be handled, is there any good reason to object to this process, or to allowing absentee ballots returned on election day to have their signature fixed if an election officer thinks there isn’t a match?
Yeah, here’s one: Absentee ballots have to be returned FIVE DAYS before the election to be valid, allowing workers time to validate arthritic signatures. I say this remembering how bad my mom’s signature got in her last years, but also remembering that someone else voted her ballot the last time.
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:53 pmthe AZ-GOP and FL-GOP are arguing the opposite side of “count the votes” argument.
Well, if Al Gore had accepted the GOP’s statewide-recount demand, he would have been elected President. But he fought it tooth-and-nail, and it was the only way he could have won. Irony is sometimes a dish served cold.
Kevin M (a57144) — 11/9/2018 @ 11:56 pmAnd Gore is who in this scenario?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c) — 11/10/2018 @ 12:06 amif depraved corrupt former senator john mccain hadn’t tainted and corrupted this loopy weak-minded mcsally chick she’d have had no trouble building an insurmountable margin of victory
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:05 amtalk about passing the baton
grab it mcsally grab that baton
now run for the roses
lol
you’re impressing absolutely nobody
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:06 amugh i went to the hyde park art center yesterday
it’s “venerable” don’t you know cause of it dates back to the 30s
i did find a photographer i kinda liked but that came with a caveat i think
this is an ethereal and lovely rendering of the sears tower
more here
but she’s a chinese national and much of her work seems rather obscenely intent upon painting Chicago as a vile dystopia
and even if that’s so
there’s so much beauty here for the taking you better do it while you can sweetie
but she does her share of that too
the rest of the galleries were super-stinky with puerile blm nonsense and trite maunderings about safe spaces
but it’s a neat space they could do a lot with it
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:37 amif the dirty sore loser trumpkins who stayed home because mcsally beat slurp-slop arpaio and munch-much ward had bothered to go and out vote the democrats would not now be getting one more vote to impeach mr. trump the president
nk (dbc370) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:42 amI think it’s the mostly the crazy conspiratorialist Warders. Tarting up into a C-grade Erin Gray lookalike probably did it for the older Arpaio loyalists.
urbanleftbehind (e01401) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:46 amat the end of the day the impeachment of President Trump is not to be feared oh no
it’s a monument to the everlasting glory of racist filth like Jeff Flake and his fascist tribe of snotty snotty harvardsnot nevertrumps
snots like Paul Ryan and Mitt “bad touch” Romney
just by exposing the anti-american anti-democratic elitism of cowardly filth like Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake President Trump has already accomplished more than any post ww2 president
we’re deeply in his debt because we all
we see with clear eyes now
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/10/2018 @ 5:48 amThe Arizona Republican primary was a demonstration of a serious lack of party discipline. One of the three should have been told to be content with their current place in the government slop trough. Rationally, Arpaio because of all his negatives, but with the drawing of straws if necessary. McSally not exempt — her fat Representative’s salary and expense account should have been enough for her until 2020 when McCain’s seat comes up for grabs.
nk (dbc370) — 11/10/2018 @ 6:14 ammcsally’s a twit with very little real whirl experience
we full up on your kind sweetie
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/10/2018 @ 6:18 amWho is the other Magistrate Dee fan, here? The third “Detective Dee” movie, Four Heavenly Kings, is on You Tube. It could have been worse.
nk (dbc370) — 11/10/2018 @ 6:40 amIf the link starts it in the middle, just scroll to beginning. Sorry about that.
nk (dbc370) — 11/10/2018 @ 6:47 amOk, better link. That is the beginning, they left out the opening credits.
nk (dbc370) — 11/10/2018 @ 6:52 amReally she looks nothing like Erin gray, the odd thing is she’s from Tucson. As a departee commenter would note.
Narciso (3386f2) — 11/10/2018 @ 7:19 amMcsally is, I suspect the paws of flake and probably maverick ghost mark Salter
Narciso (3386f2) — 11/10/2018 @ 7:26 amSusie q Collins makes me want to puke. Everyone knows her as Nancy.
mg (9e54f8) — 11/10/2018 @ 8:05 amTucson? So she a dupe of Giffords/Kelly as well?
urbanleftbehind (e01401) — 11/10/2018 @ 8:14 amIf it came to this devils bargain (1 D Sen, 1 R Sen, 1 black d Gov, 1 R gov) , mine:
Nelson
urbanleftbehind (e01401) — 11/10/2018 @ 8:19 amDeSantis
Abrams
McSally
Hey you don’t have to live here, it’s like having the threat of reverend Wright’s protege.
Narciso (3386f2) — 11/10/2018 @ 8:47 amComrade Hawtsauce is up by a full percentage point (20,000 votes) now.
Latest project for the House is D+38.
The full Trump death-toll at the state level is becoming clear, too, and the Democrats picked up about 300 seats in state legislatures.
“I thought it was very close to a complete victory.”
Dave (9664fc) — 11/10/2018 @ 9:05 am– Donald Trump, November 7
24x7x365
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/10/2018 @ 9:22 amDude, that arrangement gives you a sane CEO at the state level and puts back a 70+ aged senator whose replacement will be picked by the same governor elect. No emkeeing around with a state income tax. Let GA deal with a Tyler Perry pilot.
urbanleftbehind (e01401) — 11/10/2018 @ 9:27 amMore and more elections appear to be stolen after the polls close. This year, Montana, Arizona, and Florida had late ballots that swung the election be found in blue counties…. It’s an old story and won’t change until Democrats start going to jail. There is a long history of Dems cheating… it’s in their personal belief system that that they are entitled.
jason stewart (49e3f1) — 11/10/2018 @ 1:59 pmKevin M (a57144) — 11/8/2018 @ 10:32 pm
Well, for one thing, if people can vote in any polling place using acustom printed ballot, you probably need to use voter ID (not to mention buying lots of equipmenbt)
And even so, how do you prevent someone from going to two different polling places? Instant update on statewide system?
I also can’t figure out how they would know what your precinct is. Go by the address on a driver’s license? Use a voter registration number, perhaps tied to a complete Social Security number?
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:06 pmAnd even so, how do you prevent someone from going to two different polling places? Instant update on statewide system?
I also can’t figure out how they would know what your precinct is. Go by the address on a driver’s license? Use a voter registration number, perhaps tied to a complete Social Security number?
They use the ID to verify who you are, then look up your record on the central system, which has all appropriate information, and print out the ballot based on that. And the system updates automatically, as soon as you sign with the electronic pen to verify you are voting.
At least, that’s how in-person early voting works where I am, and I assume that if Broward County can do it, anyone can do it, including the state of New Mexico.
kishnevi (bb03e6) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:10 pmkishnevi (bb03e6) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:10 pm
That’s early voting, which usually closes a few days before Election Day, so that the record in the precinct can be accurate, and there’s only a limited number of polling stations.
That sounds like it could be disrupted by hacking, because all voting is connected, but because it is early voting, problems could be detected and straightened out.
In fact theer was ahackk in Ohio in 2008:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-politics-website/ohio-election-web-site-shut-down-after-hacked-idUKTRE49K96G20081021
In early voting, only a small fraction of voters vote at any given time. I suppose that if the system shuts down, or it needs to be shut down because it is reporting people voted when they didn’t, it won’t be too disruptive, and the hack will not accomplish anything. (the ballot itself is paper)
In one state, by the way, I read in 2016 that it is possible to vote on Election Day even if you voted early, and that Election Day ballot automatically replaces the early voting ballot
Let’s see:
Yes it is Pennsylvania although it doesn’t really have early voting. Some otgehr states allow voiding an early vote up to a certain period before.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/change-early-vote.html
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:34 pmBroward County loses Democratic votes (and maybe the republicans were afraid they would try to create missing votes. It managed to do it for the Senate and Huse races.
Senator Nelson’s campaign person was saying that it was the machines not reading ballots, but Brenda Snipes defended herself and said the machines were new.
She’s confessing to incompetence.
It seems like you could make an argument taht Democrats can’t run anything right, even when their political basis depends on it. They have systems taht can lose 2%, 3% or even 5% or more of the vote. before they had teh chad system – Chicago had it too, and New York City had voting machines where by mistake, about 2% of the voters could lose their voites by oening and clsoing the curtain (they fixed that after the year 2000, by placing a dummy lever that someone could push down to open the curtain – if they opushed down nothing the curtain didn’t open. The machines had originally been designed that way but in some kind of a deal with Gvernor nelson Rockfeller in the 1960s it was abandoned.
Broward County printed ballots where the senate and Cong races could be missed.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:42 pmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/upshot/florida-senate-race-broward-undercount.html
This Twitter post, linked to online by the New York Times , has a photo of the ballot:
https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1060579696642064390/photo/1
The ballot begins with intructions, then instructions repeated I think in Spanish and ten another language – I don’t know what – Portuguese? Portuguese? Or is that French? Or Creole?
And the races start at the bottom of the column. Senate and Congress comes first.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 12:59 pmAl Gore would have lost the statewide recount, even with counting people who voted for him as a write-in and again on the ballot. Gore wanted a recount onlly in certain pqarts of the state, and as soon as he was ahead, he would ahev tried to stop it.
The race was lost in part because in Jacksonville, the Democratic party kept telling everyone (especially new voters) to vote on every page (for no good reason – the minor races were assured) and there were two pages for president – one whch included the main candidates and the second one had more minor parties; and in Palm Beach County there was the butterlfy ballot.
Also the chad counties were more Democratic.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:06 pmThe Republicans actually lost majority of the United States Senate races – they gained seats because they lost even more in 2012.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:13 pm61.kishnevi (bec396) — 11/9/2018 @ 6:06 pm
Not confuse.. Overlook.
That would have to happen after they had cpmpletred the balllot. Would it tell them WHAT they left out?
United States Senator, not judges.
Interestinmg
Also remember of the three races which got more votes than the US Senate, two had African American candidates, and one had a candidate who was from Broward. All three could reasonably get votes that an older white guy with no connections (Nelson) to Broward would not get
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:20 pmI meant: Interesting question: IS there a sdiff betwene percentage undervotes where they got awarning and where they did not?
Gillum was less popular than Nelsonn.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:22 pmSammy, I don’t think the ballot was confusing, and I voted on it. It was long and packed with proposed amendments, judicial retentions, etc but the layout was not confusing.
kishnevi (5bd7eb) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:35 pmThe third language is Kreyol, meaning Haitian Creole-French.
BTW, the 23rd Cong. is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. My district, in fact. Probably more than a few people felt no need to vote in that race. I was one of them, just like in 2016. Choice was Debbie Dearest, Canova the Bernie Bro, Kaufman who converted to Trumpism from the Tea Party in 2016, and a guy named Epps who ran as the Tech Party candidate advocating universal online voting or something like that.
That would have to happen after they had cpmpletred the balllot. Would it tell them WHAT they left out?
kishnevi (5bd7eb) — 11/11/2018 @ 1:39 pmYes.
I presume the same system was in use for people who voted on Nov 6. But of course it would not have been a factor in mail-in/absentee ballots.
Sinema declared the winner, McSally concedes.
“I retired him. I’m very proud of it.”
Dave (9664fc) — 11/12/2018 @ 11:54 pm– Donald Trump, #Winning!
“So much for Arizona”, is what I say. The quiches in Sedona and the Metamucils in Scotsdale managed to turn it lavender.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2018 @ 4:34 ammeghan’s cowardly disgrace-to-the-uniform daddy helped
happyfeet (28a91b) — 11/13/2018 @ 5:52 amJudge says they have till Friday to turn the ballots in Georgia, guess who she’s related to.
Narciso (bc40f9) — 11/13/2018 @ 6:50 amAnswer nina totenberg.
Narciso (bc40f9) — 11/13/2018 @ 6:56 amThe Sea Islands Summit might have well been Yalta/Potsdamn for one of the participants of the Worlds Largest Cocktail Party.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:24 amJason Lewis is an idiot and a loser, noted here, and it’s one of the worst cases of blame-shifting I’ve seen. McCain voted “no” because Trump had no better solution to the Obamacare problem. It was legitimate to vote nay because the 2018 electoral results could very well have been worse either without Obamacare or with a worse Trumpcare bill. Trumpalistas should just accept that, despite a full-throttle economy, losing the House and seven governors’ mansions are the result of Trump’s own mismanagement and massive dishonesty, not on a vote by a dying Senator.
Paul Montagu (70fe18) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:29 amThe irony is that Trump helped push out a Republican Senator in Arizona, a Republican who voted with Trump 84% of the time, and that opened the door to a Democrat win in a border state, a Democrat who will likely vote with Trump 0% of the time.
The promise was to repeal Obamacare period just like to build the wall, because that jackalope refused to do the former his constituents will suffer, I gather he is already suffering in an undisclosed locations
Narciso (bc40f9) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:32 ama Democrat who will likely vote with Trump 0% of the time.
Sinema as Congresswoman voted with Trump 60% of the time according to the report I saw.
kishnevi (d764f4) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:47 amConsiderably less than 84% of the time, of course, and the dynamics of voting in the Senate are different from those in the House, but one can expect her to ignore Schumer or his replacement at least some of the time.
“The irony is that Trump helped push out a Republican Senator in Arizona, a Republican who voted with Trump 84% of the time“
Paul Montagu (70fe18) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:29 am
Sinema and Doug Jones will make nice bookends.
Suddenly, being a Republican with a conservative voting record is all that matters. Didn’t we label that “tribal”?
Meanwhile, Flake admirers have been working to “push out” Trump since 2016, but that’s perfectly dandy.
Munroe (c80181) — 11/13/2018 @ 7:59 amYou can’t blame Trump for everything, unless you think he and Hillary set the trend of a Hobson’s choice between two sh!tty candidates. We had the same thing up here in the Illinois governor’s race.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:15 amWell Rauner was mostly harmless, Pritzker when he moved away from the buffet table could be dangerous.
Narciso (bc40f9) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:17 amYou may get your wish appalled:
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/11/obama-judge-takes-over-georgias-election.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR3aq8PLdysjpvHzTSAl3iydF5rk6RZnsykZxKgu-QTOBvne8dBl7UFK8SU&m=1
Narciso (bc40f9) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:26 amTrump promised to replace Obamacare with Trumpcare, which was presumably supposed to be better than Obamacare, until he welshed on that promise.
Paul Montagu (70fe18) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:36 amTrump cares more about the Mar-A-Lago state, that is all, Narciso, be glad.
Rauner was standing on a three legged stool and all 3 legs got kicked out from under him (first the Libertarian rapper-name guy, then the Downstate Illinois secessionist, finally a clumsy statement about illegal immigrants as indirect cause of black crime which cost him the skeptic paisa vote) and landed hard.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:48 amI just saw it as two rich jerkoffs with Cayman accounts and Rahm Emanuel’s private number on speed dial, and voted for the R.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2018 @ 8:56 amWhat should matter is that disagreeing with a president on some issues is no reason for disqualification. Ronald Reagan: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20 percent traitor.”
Paul Montagu (70fe18) — 11/13/2018 @ 9:50 amThat Trump doesn’t get that means that he is no Reagan. Rather, he is Patrick Buchanan, except for the anti-Semitism.