Thursday, November 8, 2012

Arizona Buried in Uncounted Ballots

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

While the rest of the nation is busy putting the 2012 general election behind them, in Arizona we are still busy counting votes.  Three of the state's nine congressional districts remain uncertain of who their next representative in Congress will be, and small wonder - 600,000 Arizona ballots remain uncounted!

Nearly 460,000 of the uncounted ballots are in Maricopa County where our esteemed county clerk, Helen Purcell, states that it may take up to ten days to complete the tabulation of the votes.  Two-thirds of the uncounted ballots are those that were cast early - and the remainder are provisional ballots that were issued on election day to people whose right to vote was questionable in some regard.

In Arizona's first congressional district, former congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat, appears to have won with a 6,000 vote majority, though her Republican opponent, Jonathan Paton has declined to concede.

Martha McSally, a retired Air Force pilot and the Republican candidate in the second congressional district (Gabby Giffords' old district) has an extremely slim 400-vote lead over Gifford's chosen successor and current congressman, Ron Barber.

And in Arizona's new congressional district, the ninth, Krysten Sinema, the Democrat, had a 2,700-vote lead over her Republican opponent,  Vernon Parker.  Sinema, a college professor at ASU - as well as an atheist and bisexual - speaks confidently of victory, although her district covers a large swath of eastern Maricopa County where those pesky votes are still being tallied - by the bushel!

Keep counting, Miss Helen, keep counting!

1 comment:

Xobekim said...

Perhaps the elegibility of voters who cast provisional ballots was not questionable. Maybe only questioned.

Linn County, Kansas's vote reader machine threw a rod and they are having to hand count the county.