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Democrat Kyrsten Sinema edged Republican Martha McSally on Thursday in the Arizona Senate race by a margin of 2,000 votes. It was the first time that Sinema had been ahead of McSally since the election.
A further 120,000 outstanding ballots were made available Thursday in Maricopa County. The county includes Phoenix and some of the liberal enclaves of the state. There are 345,000 ballots to be counted by a knowledgeable source at the office of the Arizona State Secretary.
The Republicans filed a lawsuit on Wednesday night challenging the way some counties in Arizona count postal ballots, while election officials slowly began counting more than 600,000 votes outstanding in the race. US Senate. The task that could take days.
About 75 percent of Arizona voters voted by mail, but they must go through a signature confirmation process. It is then that they can be opened and classified. If county registrars have problems verifying signatures, they are allowed to ask voters to verify their identity.
Wednesday's complaint by four county Republican parties alleges that the 15 state county clerks do not follow a uniform standard allowing voters to adjust their postal ballots and that two counties wrongly allow these patches after the day of the poll.
The GOP complained about the problem before polling day and threatened to sue. Democrats claimed that it was an attempt to suppress voters and that the recorders had followed the same procedures for years without any problems. Republicans said it was about respecting the law and counting votes on time.
Slow counting is a recurring problem for Arizona, but it has rarely been the focus of much attention, as the GOP Trend State has generally held few fiercely controlled competitions at the national level.
The prosecution alleges that the signature verification must cease at the close of the polls and request an injunction to prevent counting of the verified ballots after that date. It is unclear how many of these votes remain outstanding, but the lawsuit distinguishes the two largest state counties from the state, the Sinema Support Center. He says the two counties allow voters to help resolve signing problems up to five days after the elections.
Democrats believe that unsubordinated urban ballots were tabled shortly before election day for Sinema.
The trial must be heard on Friday after the next late publication of the counted ballots.
Grace Segers contributed to this report.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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