Arizona county blames human error for discrepancies in attorney general race

The county found hundreds of additional votes during a mandatory statewide recount

The third-largest county in Arizona is blaming human error and poorly-trained staff for the hundreds of additional votes it found during a state-mandated recount, which narrowed the already close race for state attorney general.

In a meeting Wednesday morning, Pinal county officials laid out various human errors and training lapses that led to a discrepancy of more than 500 votes between the canvassed results and the recounted totals. The initial count was off by 0.3% from the recounted results, the county said.

Some provisional ballots were not counted correctly.

Some polling electronic poll pads would not scan voters’ driver’s licenses, so some voters cast ballots without being formally checked in.

Paper jams in tabulation may not have been interpreted correctly, leading to miscounts.

Ballots with unclear marks weren’t adjudicated and counted in some cases.

A tabulation team in one case didn’t sort through ballots that were flagged for not being processed by the machine, leading to a stack of ballots that weren’t counted.