PHOENIX - Arizona Republicans and Democrats reached a settlement to give rural voters an extra chance to fix problems with their ballots in the count of the state's tight Senate race.
That's a compromise after Republicans filed a lawsuit seeking to stop urban voters from using those procedures.
Team 12's Brahm Resnik was in court Friday afternoon when the settlement was announced.
Arizona counties now have until Nov. 14 to address issues related to signatures missing or not matching on ballots.
Curing the ballots means recorders will check with early voters if the signature on file does not match the signature on the ballot.
The lawsuit filed by a group of Arizona Republicans alleged the state's county recorders don't follow a uniform standard for allowing voters to address problems with their mail-in ballots, and that Maricopa and Pima counties improperly allow the fixes for up to five days after election day.
Prior to Friday's hearing, tempers flared all the way from the Arizona Republican Party to President Donald Trump.
President Trump tweeted frustrations with the Arizona Senate race vote count as well:
As of 3 p.m. on Friday, Sinema holds about a 9,000-vote lead over McSally.
This comes less than 24 hours after Democrat Kyrsten Sinema pulled ahead in the race for the first time since early Tuesday night. Republican candidate Martha McSally had a lead of over 20,000 votes at one point, but as more votes were counted in Maricopa and Pima counties, Sinema jumped ahead.
On Thursday, a judge denied the Republican group's request to immediately stop counting ballots in the Senate race, but Maricopa County Judge Margaret Mahoney set a hearing for Friday after the GOP challenged the way the county is handling mail-in ballots pending signature verification.
Maricopa County recorder Adrian Fontes released a statement after the hearing Friday afternoon. In response to GOP questions regarding the preservation of evidence, Fontes responded:
"There are two parts to this issue, the ballot and the envelope. The GOP asked me to sequester both as evidence. Keeping the ballots separate and uncounted is illegal, and I refuse to disenfranchise voters. But, I still have the envelopes. So if they want to sue me for something I understand the Clerk's Office is open until 5 p.m."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
