Pima County sheriff’s race between Nanos, Lappin headed for recount

The Pima County sheriff’s race is headed for a recount.

Incumbent Sheriff Chris Nanos, a Democrat, finished ahead of Republican Heather Lappin by 495 votes. That's within the half-percent or less margin in state law that triggers a recount.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to sign off on election results and ask the Superior Court to direct a recount in the sheriff's race.

Elections Director Constance Hargrove said it will take about two weeks to complete the recount after the department receives the court order. The process will mean rerunning the 518,595 ballots cast through the tabulation machines. The county said because the election included a two-card ballot, more than 1 million cards must be processed.

The results of the recount will be presented to the Superior Court judge and read from the bench.

Supervisors grill recorder on canceled early ballot requests, oppose investigation

The board's canvass of election results came two days after supervisors questioned Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly about why her office closed down an early ballot request online portal in the weeks prior to the November election.

Cázares-Kelly, a Democrat, was reelected in November to a second term.

The department closed the portal on Oct. 19, canceling about 4,000 ballot requests after receiving an overwhelming number of early ballot requests. Voters were alerted of the issue and encouraged to call the recorder’s office to resolve their online request.

Supervisor Steve Christy at the Tuesday meeting requested an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to the cancelations.

“If there isn’t a clearcut unbiased investigation, this cloud will hang over the recorder's office and our voting system indefinitely,” said Christy, the sole Republican on the board. He also said it would be dangerous to protect “politically an elected official who happens to be of the same party.”

The motion failed 1-4, with Christy the only supervisor supporting the motion.

But while they opposed a probe, the board's Democrats questioned her on what caused the issue, how many of the canceled requests were resolved and how they were changing the online system to avoid future issues. They also asked her to include these details in the election after-action report that will be presented to the board.

What caused the portal closure?

Cázares-Kelly said the portal closure was due to a district boundary error discovered by the county just weeks before the election leading to an “unavoidable delay” in the vendor's printing of the ballots.

The delay caused voters to panic and flood the online form to request ballots. With the influx of requests, and the state statute requiring early ballot requests to be fulfilled within 48 hours, the department decided to close the portal with Cázares-Kelly’s support.

Cázares-Kelly said after the closure occurred, the department contacted the Pima County Attorney’s Office and the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, who agreed that the action did not disenfranchise voters.

The Monday after the portal closure, the office fielded 3,500 phone calls and processed 1,858 vote-by-mail ballot requests on the phone. By the end of the week, the office had processed 4,919 requests for early ballots over the phone.

“It appears that the majority of emailed voters either called us within that week to request ballots or received their first ballot requests,” Cázares-Kelly said.

Cázares-Kelly reiterated she inherited the portal system, noting they had never seen such high traffic, and the system is being redesigned to avoid similar issues in the future.

Reach the reporter at [email protected]. The Republic’s coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Pima County sheriff’s race between Nanos, Lappin headed for recount