A judge has dismissed a challenge to the Sept. 12 primary election results by three Libertarian write-in candidates who did not receive enough votes to qualify for the general election.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Kristin Hoffman ruled Oct. 2 there is no legal basis for the candidates’ petition to inspect and recount write-in votes in 141 Maricopa County precincts and delay the printing of general election ballots.
The suit was brought by Dan Poland, a candidate for state Senate in District 10; John Williams, District 15 Senate candidate; and Michael Kielsky, a candidate for justice of the peace in Mesa.
The candidates alleged that because an error was discovered in the write-in votes for 7th Congressional District candidate Joe Cobb, their vote totals should be inspected. A recount of Mr. Cobb’s votes boosted his total from 9 to 13, one more than needed to qualify for the general election, but a county elections official said she was confident there were no miscounts in the three other races.
“The fact that four votes were not properly counted in the original canvass was the result of mistakes made by staff in the elections department that would have been corrected before results were announced if the results had been audited properly,” wrote Judge Hoffman.
In her ruling, she stated the Libertarians failed to cite state law that provides for challenging write-in candidacies, and the issue was moot because the general election ballots were being printed that evening for early voting that opened Oct. 5.
“There are no allegations of fraud or deception of the voters in this matter, or of abuse of discretion by the write-in tally board,” she wrote.
Mr. Poland and Mr. Williams each received 5 votes, two short of what they needed to go on to the general election, and Mr. Kielsky fell one vote short of the five he needed.
“When it comes to counting votes, the government’s attitude and the court’s attitude for the government is one of ‘That’s close enough for government work,’” said Mr. Kielsky, an attorney who represented himself and the two other candidates. “With a small party (19,000 registrations in Arizona), it magnifies the problem significantly.”
The candidates sued Secretary of State Jan Brewer and various county officials, alleging they would likely suffer “irreparable harm by being wrongfully omitted from the general election ballots.”
For write-in candidates to qualify for the general election, they must get at least the number of votes equal to the number of signatures required to qualify for their races in the primary election. Both numbers are based on a percentage of the number of registered voters in their party.
Write-in votes are supposed to be segregated at the polls and counted separately, said Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne.
In the county’s motion to dismiss the case, Deputy County Attorney Colleen Connor stated the mistake in the 7th Congressional District should be not be considered evidence of other error.
“Plaintiffs extrapolate from this honest mistake (and immediate correction) that the vote count of hundreds of thousands of ballots is incorrect,” she wrote. “Based on the false premise that both the voting machines and the election board be error-free, plaintiffs attempt to impose an unrealistic standard on election officials.”
In an interview, Mr. Kielsky said that despite losing the case, it illustrated there are flaws in the elections system.
In the secretary of state’s motion to dismiss the case, the Attorney General’s Office stated that if the court found in favor of the candidates, Mrs. Brewer “takes no position on the merits of the petitioners’ allegations against Maricopa County.”
Nine Libertarians, two Democrats and one Republican qualified as write-in candidates for the Nov. 7 general election.
The case is CV2006-014637.