Ballot-counting completed in county, but election goes on

Pinal County is done counting ballots for an election that had 75% voter turnout.

Hanging in the balance of the final count was the race for Maricopa Unified School District Governing Board. Though the vote canvass will not be certified by the Board of Supervisors until Nov. 18, incumbent Jim Jordan has a 17-vote advantage over Tracie Armstead-Payton.

MUSD incumbents Torri Anderson and AnnaMarie Knorr had little difficulty getting re-elected to their seats.

In the Maricopa City Council race, Amber Liermann maintained a 9% lead over Andre LaFond from election night through the final count.

The five-member Board of Supervisors will have three new faces in 2021, according to the unofficial numbers. Republican Jeffrey McClure defeated independent Marlene Pearce for the District 4 seat, to replace retiring Anthony Smith. Longtime Arizona politician Pete Rios lost his seat in District 1 to Republican Kevin Cavanaugh. In District 5, Jeff Serdy had already defeated incumbent Todd House in the Republican primary and had no competition in the general.

All other county races were walkovers.

Legislative District 11 became typical of several Arizona races on the ballot, with Democrats showing up strong in the early counts but Republicans coming back to take the seats in the tabulation of in-person voting. In the House, incumbents Bret Roberts and Mark Finchem both had about 7,000 votes more than challenger Dr. Felipe Perez. It was an even wider gap in the Senate, with incumbent Republican Vince Leach defeating JoAnna Mendoza by more than 11,000 votes.

A Democrat was the top vote-getter in the Corporation Commission race for three seats. Anna Tovar drew 17.5% of the vote in a field of six. Incumbent Republican Lea Marquez Peterson was just 900 votes behind her to win re-election, and Republican Jim O’Connor, who had to use a write-in campaign to qualify for the ballot, took the third seat.

In the statewide unofficial vote count, the three federal offices had similar outcomes. Arizonans chose incumbent Democrat Tom O’Halleran to remain in Congress for District 1. Republican challenger Tiffany Shedd trails him by 11,749 votes, a 3% difference.

Mirroring that, Democrat Mark Kelly defeated incumbent Republican Martha McSally by 79,139 votes in the unofficial tally, a 2% difference.

And in the top spot, unofficially, Democrat Joe Biden defeated incumbent Republican Donald Trump in Arizona by 11,390 votes, or 0.34%.

According to Arizona Revised Statutes, recounts cannot be requested but are automatically triggered after a canvass if the margin between the top two candidates is one-tenth of 1% or less of the total votes cast for the two candidates. Currently, that would require a margin no larger than 3,300.

All totals must be certified by county and state election officials.

The statewide voter turnout was almost 80%.