Duff, Hutchinson grab early vote leads for council, school board

Nov. 8—Vice Mayor Jenn Duff jumped to an early lead over challenger Trista Guzman Glover in the runoff Mesa City Council race Tuesday night, initial results showed.

Duff garner 59% of the vote to Guzman Glover's 41% in the battle for the downtown seat on council.

In the seven-way battle for two seats on the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board, incumbent board member Marcie Hutchinson grabbed the lead with 27 of the vote.

She was followed by Rachel Walden with 21%; Jacob Martinez, 17%; Ed Steele, 13%; J.R. Wright, 9%; Chris Hamlet, 7%; and Ray Deer, 6%.

On Mesa's ballot questions and propositions, "yes" votes led significantly on all four issues in early returns, potentially paving the way for millions of dollars in city spending on public safety and infrastructure projects.

The Home Rule option in Question 1 garnered 80% yes to 20% no, and Question 2, a $157 million public safety bond for new fire stations and police building renovations, had 73% yes to 27% no.

"Yes" votes are also leading on the two changes to the city charter on the ballot: Prop 476 to allow direct negotiations with sworn public safety groups so far has 71% yes to 29% no, and Prop 477, which lets council change the threshold for spending votes, has 75% yes to 25% no.

Termed-out District 6 Councilman Kevin Thompson, a Republican candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission race, garnered 23% of votes, behind Democrats Sandra Kennedy with 28% and Lauren Kuby with 27%. Republican Nick Myers has 22%

But those numbers may be meaningless by Wednesday morning amid chaos at many of Maricopa County's 223 polling places that threatened to delay returns from many precincts across the county.

Long lines at polling places around the 7 p.m. closing time — created in part by mechanical problems early Tuesday at some polling places — prompted attorneys for Kari Lake's campaign and the Republican National Committee to seek a court order requiring polls to stay open until 10 p.m. but a judge denied the request.

The hearing on the request did not begin until 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and county elections officials argued that they had no way of telling workers at all the polls to extend hours.

Epstein is seeking the Senate seat occupied by Ahwatukee resident Sean Bowie, who decided not to run for re-election.

Her move left both House seats up for grabs because two-term Rep. Jermaine Johnson opted to run for Justice of the Peace in Chandler.

Contreras, a retired City of Phoenix human services program manager, and Travers, a scientist, easily bested three other Primary Election candidates.

Richardson, also a scientist and entrepreneur, is seeking to take the Senate seat from Democrats while Roe, a former cop in his final term on Chandler City Council, and Chaston, a CPA who owns his own firm, were hoping to do the same in the House seats.

During the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission debate Sept. 1, the candidates split along party lines on most issues, including abortion rights, private school vouchers, and the state Constitution's Aggregate Expenditure Limit on school spending, which threatens to force school districts across the state to make massive cuts early next year.

Prior to the release of the first batch of results Tuesday, Attorney Kory Langhofer, representing the Republican National Committee, said there were problems at about 60 of the county's 223 polling places that resulted in tabulators being unable to read and tally filled-in ballots. The result, he said, is that some voters walked away to go to other polling places.

But Langhofer, also speaking for the campaigns of GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake and the Blake Masters campaign for Senate, said many found they could not vote at the new location at electronic poll books showed they already had cast a ballot at the first location. And he said all this makes a difference in what are expected to be close races.

"It's entirely possible that this issue, this disenfranchisement of voters today in Maricopa County, could determine who's our governor for the next four years and the majority control of the United States Senate," he told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Ryan, what with that chamber now divided 50-50.

And the record in Arizona is that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to eschew early voting and instead go to the polls on election day.

The judge, however, said there was no evidence anyone actually was denied the opportunity to vote. He said all 223 locations were open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. as required by state law.

More to the point, Ryan said those whose ballots could not be immediately scanned were given the opportunity to instead deposit them in a sealed box and tallied after the polls closed at county election offices. And Deputy County Attorney Tom Liddy said that procedure of depositing ballots into boxes for later counting is the only option in many other counties.

Langhofer, however, said that was not an acceptable choice for some people who specifically chose to cast their votes in person because they wanted the ballots tabulated while they watched to ensure their votes would be counted. But the judge said, in essence, that was their decision even if they didn't like the process.

"It might have been a little unorthodox in their view," Ryan said. "But from what I've seen, they all got a collection of their vote, whether it was a provisional vote or put in a box that was collected and retained."

The judge said he assumes that under county protocols the votes will be processed — and that voters will be able to check online after Election Day to be sure that their ballots were counted.

Roy Arellano, representing the Senate campaign of Democrat Mark Kelly, pointed out that the problems with the tabulators were publicly known as early as 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

He argued — and Ryan agreed — that Langhofer and his clients, in waiting until about an hour before the polls closed to seek extended hours, effectively gave up their right to complain.

At the heart of the issue is that Maricopa County uses "voting centers" which allows people who are registered to vote to go to any location. That, by extension, means printing out individual ballots on site.

Bill Gates, who chairs the Board of Supervisors, said it turned out that the printers were not using enough toner to create dark enough images for the scanners to align and read the votes.

That left voters with three choices: Wait until the problem was solved, go to another location — or deposit the unscanned ballot into a sealed box with the promise it would be counted once it was brought to county election offices.

But the polling places did remain open. And the county did begin fixing the problems in the afternoon.

The challengers sought more than simply keeping the polls open until 10 p.m.

They also wanted procedures clarified to ensure that those who got a ballot at one location but chose not to cast it there were not turned away because they had been marked as already having voted.

Langhofer cited the experience of one voter who, unable to get his ballot immediately tabulated at one location, went to another, only to be told the record showed he had previously cast a ballot.

"Yet, it was not there," he said.

And it is situations like that, Langhofer said, that can make a difference in a really close race, which is why he wanted to allow voters like that an opportunity — after regular voting hours — to cast a new ballot.

Liddy, however, told Ryan that there is a problem with what Langhofer suggested.

"It would be a recipe for voter fraud," he said. Liddy said it would allow anyone to come in at the last minute and argue that they had not had an opportunity to vote despite what county records show.

"We violated the sacrosanct fundamental aspect of American constitutional democracy, and that is one person, one vote," he said.

-Howard Fischer of Capital Media Services contributed to this report.