By Mary Jo Pitzl || The Arizona Republic
That’s due in part to a new state law that makes automatic recounts more likely, especially given close races up and down this year’s ballot.
Elections officials and campaign staffers say they’re preparing for the possibility of recounts, which would extend their work for weeks.
“It’s basically telling people they can’t go on their planned December vacation,” quipped Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
Maricopa County bought nine extra ballot tabulation machines to handle the anticipated workload. Depending on the number and types of races subject to an automatic machine recount, the work could stretch to the end of the year, officials say.
Recount margin 5 times larger
The new law dictates that if the margin between two candidates or ballot measures is less than half a percentage point of all ballots cast in that race, a recount is automatically triggered. That means in a race in which 3 million ballots are cast, a margin of 15,000 votes or less would set a recount in motion.
The previous margin was one-tenth of 1 percentage point.
