A note from Arizona

I received this note from an old friend, Joe Bernick, who lives in Tuscon and remains very active in politics there. I thought you might find it interesting as I did.

Good analysis of the election, but you got Arizona (AZ not AR) wrong. There are no recounts planned, at least not for the Senate race. Sinema, the Democrat is already leading by 2% AND WILL END UP with a 3 or 4% lead by the time the votes are counted. A full one third of the ballots statewide were not counted by Thursday morning, and they won’t be finished until later this week. The Democrat always gains 3 to 4 percent after the election night, and this year it could be 5%. This is nothing new – it happens each election.

The reason is that most Arizonans vote by mail with the ballots needed to be received by election day. Some half million voters turned in their mail-in ballots on election day by bringing them into the polling station. They didn’t have to stand in line – just drop them off. Plus many more arrived by mail that day. All of these need to be verified first than counted, which takes much longer. Many others who had received mail in ballots showed up at the polls without their “mail in ballot” . They were given provisional ballots so that election officials can make sure they didn’t also mail in a ballot b4 the vote is counted. Others had provisional ballots for other reasons usually involving having moved. A few thousands could not be read by the machine, like if they had a coffee spill so the election worker has to copy it onto a blank ballot b4 feeding it into a machine. All these ballots that are counted after election night take longer to verify so the process is slow. I California the ballots s only needed to be postmarked by election day. Anyway most people whose votes are counted late are poorer, urban, younger and includes more blue voters.

On election night when we found out that Sinema was one percent behind we went to bed knowing she would win.

AZ had nine candidates running statewide and it looks like four or five have won – all women. None have won for a decade.

Dems also did well in legislative and local races. AZ legislature will be 41% women.