County explains disqualified ballots in tight CD2 race

The top reason, says Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez, is that nearly half, or 371 voters, went to the wrong polling place.

State law requires that ballots cast at a different polling place than their listed address must be disqualified.

Another 318 would-be voters were not eligible to vote in Pima County. That number included 146 people who had never registered to vote in Pima County, 84 who previously registered to vote here but had their registration canceled, and the remaining 88 individuals, who did register to vote, but after the deadline to be a part of this election cycle.

Another 52 voters sent in their early ballot and also tried to vote a second time at the polls.

Rodriguez said she will recommend legal action against those who tried to vote twice.

“I will request that the Pima County Attorney’s Office investigate all 52 of these individuals for prosecution for attempting to vote twice,” wrote Rodriguez.

Another 28 voters will not be able to have their votes counted simply because they did not sign their provisional ballot form.

Four more told election officials that their address was outside of Pima County. County officials rejected three other provisional ballots because they could not confirm information that they provided on the form.

Ron Barber’s re-election campaign has said it has concerns about the number of ballots being rejected.

The county did count 233 conditional provisional votes Wednesday from voters who lacked proper identification at the polling place.

Another 54 ballots, however, were disqualified after the voters failed to return with ID.

In other Congressional District 2 news, the Martha McSally campaign has dropped its legal challenge to the counting of provisional ballots that lacked a signature of a poll worker.

A Pima County Superior Court judge ruled against issuing a temporary restraining order sought by the McSally campaign on Monday, unwilling to stop the county elections department from continuing to count those ballots.

A call to an attorney representing McSally was not immediately returned.