PHOENIX — A revote of last week's Arizona presidential preference election has been bandied about by would-be voters upset by the outcome: long lines, hard-to-find parking and confused voter registration.
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo told the House Elections Committee on Monday that the Legislature should seriously consider a revote.
But it wouldn't be so simple, election attorneys say. And given the supervisors' 4-1 vote Wednesday to approve the canvass of the March 22 presidential preference election results, Gallardo's hope for an extra day of voting for disenfranchised Maricopa County voters seems remote.
Once the canvass, which certifies an election's results, is done, "that ship has sailed," said attorney Kory Langhofer.
That means the only viable recourse is a lawsuit, said Langhofer and attorney Jim Barton. Both men have worked in election law for candidates on opposite sides of the political aisle.
"There's nothing in statute that lets an election official call an election invalid," Barton said.
Democrat Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is weighing a challenge to the election, arguing Sanders could have gained more delegates if the polls had been able to accommodate all the people who showed up. Many were discouraged by long lines or compelled to leave because of work obligations.
That decision would probably follow the secretary of state's official canvass, scheduled to happen Monday, campaign attorney Chris Sautter told The Arizona Republic after the county canvass.
Speaking to KPNX-TV, Sautter compared Arizona's election to the fiasco in Florida in 2000 after the presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
"I was in Florida in 2000, beginning the morning after the election, and this election is pretty close to as bad as that one in terms of how it was conducted and the mess in the aftermath," said Sautter.
State law provides for anyone who is a registered voter to file an "election contest," but it must be done within five days of the statewide canvass, said state Elections Director Eric Spencer.
Langhofer said for a candidate to convince a judge to re-run the election, he or she would have to prove it would change the outcome. Hillary Clinton bested Sanders 57% to 41% in the Democratic contest, while on the GOP side Donald Trump finished 19 points ahead of Ted Cruz.
But because Arizona's Democratic election results allot delegates on a proportional basis, Sanders could pick up a few more, his camp argues. Republican rules allocate all of the delegates to the winner, in this case, Trump.
Clinton won 44 delegates in Arizona to Sanders' 30.
The Sanders campaign is questioning the huge number of provisional ballots that were tossed out by the county recorder's office.
"We believe there's a possibility the delegate count could change if some of these provisional ballots are counted," Sautter told reporters after the County Board meeting.
The county recorder's office reported that 20,008 provisional ballots were declared invalid out of more than 24,000 cast. Virtually all of the invalid provisional ballots were cast by voters who were ineligible because their party registration was "independent." Independents were not allowed to vote in the primary.
Barton, who is the attorney for the state Democratic Party, said a lawsuit that invokes Voting Rights Act violations is another possibility. But, he said, "I think we're nowhere close to that in this case." That's because in cases where elections have had a do-over, there has been evidence of overt racial bias, something that might be hard to demonstrate given long lines at polling places countywide.
"You never know, but it's hard to see this as the hallmark of these very extraordinary cases (of bias) where you see a revote," Barton said.
Lawmakers who sat through Monday's three-hour hearing said they were unclear on how a revote would happen, but both Democrats and Republicans said they would be open to the idea if the logistics were possible.
Contributing: Brahm Resnik, KPNX-TV, Phoenix. Follow Mary Jo Pitzl on Twitter: @maryjpitzl
