http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-934707.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne said she still
has about 40,000 provisional ballots to count. But she said the
real problem involves 20,000 remaining early ballots which are
going to need some special handling.
(This is when the people really, really, really, really, really,
really want you to know how they feel on something or person and
it bleeds right through to the back of the ballot and votes on
something they didn't intend to do at all.)
To get rid of those extraneous marks, each ballots has to be
duplicated in a process supervised by a board of both Republicans
and Democrats, and then fed back through the scanners which tally
the numbers. Also left are about 50,000 ballots with write-in
votes. Osborne said the counting equipment can't read what name
is on that line. And some voters weren't deterred by the fact
that only candidates who signed up ahead of time as write-in
candidates can have their votes tallied.
(Maybe they think it's funny. But But Mickey still has the most.
Big Bird got a lot this time. All of the characters on
television, a lot of the race car people.)
And Osborne said there are a bunch where people just wrote in
their own names, over and over, for every office. There was one
bit of good news Thursday for election officials: A federal
appeals court won't require them to find and tabulate the ballots
of those who were not allowed to register because they did not
provide proof of citizenship but cast provisional ballots anyway.
The judges acknowledged their earlier ruling that the requirement
imposed by Arizona voters in 2004 runs afoul of federal statutes.
But that ruling came weeks after the deadline to register to vote
in Arizona and after early voting started. The judges said they
don't like to interfere with elections already underway. Anyway,
they said that even if they were to order the ballots counted,
there is little chance it would change the outcome the election:
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which
asked for the emergency order, has so far been able to identify
only four people they believe whose votes should be counted. For
Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer