By Rebekah L. Sanders
The Arizona Republic
Disputed ballots in the contentious southern Arizona congressional race between Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Barber and GOP opponent Martha McSally will be added to the final tally, attorneys agreed Tuesday.
But the votes will be set aside, so they are not lost among the rest of the ballots, in case attorneys decide to challenge them later.
GOP officials had warned of the risk of “fraud and ballot tampering” because election workers did not properly seal and mark 130 provisional ballots in three precincts in Cochise County.
The lawsuit said one or more workers reached inside the unsealed and unmarked envelopes, pulled out “tracking forms” that had not been placed on the envelopes and affixed them to mark the envelopes without alerting political party officials, who are allowed to monitor the counting process.
Barber’s campaign strongly objected to the lawsuit, raising concerns that failing to count the ballots would disenfranchise voters, the majority of whom live in a Latino-heavy precinct in Douglas. Attorneys also argued that state election law does not require ballot envelopes to be sealed.
