TUCSON, Ariz. — One of Arizona's tightest elections is officially too close to call, and officials have started the procedure for a recount of the votes.
When the Pima County Elections Department finished tabulating the votes, Sheriff Chris Nanos was ahead of his Republican challenger, Heather Lappin by 495 votes — just over 0.1% of the 487,225 ballots cast in their race.
In Arizona, ballots are automatically recounted when one candidate wins by 0.5% or less than the total vote.
Pima County officials will hold a special meeting Thursday to recommend a petition to the Superior Court for a recount and approve a canvass of the election. Both of these are required procedural steps in the process.
“Once we have the court order, the recount can begin,” said Elections Director Constance Hargrove. “We must run all ballots through the tabulator and adjudicate any ballots for Sheriff. There were 518,466 ballots casts in the election, which equates to over 1 million cards. It will likely take about 14 calendar days to complete the recount.”
The county will publish the results when the recount is complete.
The sheriff's race was mired in controversy before Election Day after Lappin, who currently works under Nanos in the sheriff's department, was placed on leave.
The decision was met with criticisms from other Democrats like Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz, who has called for Arizona's attorney general to investigate Nanos.
Nanos lost the 2016 sheriff's race to Republican Mark Napier. But he won four years later in a rematch against Napier that was determined by a couple of thousand votes.
