'Trainwreck': A new state law has 'Arizona’s election officials waving red flags'

Arizona election officials are sounding the alarm on the potential consequence of "a new state law that makes recounts more likely and next year's elections calendar," warning that "those recounts could still be ongoing as presidential electors meet to appoint the president and vice president," AZ Central reports.

Per the report, officials say "the state could miss a crucial deadline to report its vote tallies in the" 2024 presidential election "if state lawmakers don't solve calendar issues that might arise if there's an automatic recount."

The new state law, according to AZ Central, allows races to be "automatically recounted if the final margin between two candidates or ballot measures is less than half a percentage point of the total votes cast. But the extra tally can only take place after all votes are initially counted and the election is certified in Arizona."

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AZ Central reports:

The potential issues have Arizona's election officials waving red flags. In a letter to Navajo County Supervisor Jason Whiting, who currently serves as president of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona, officials stressed that the potential issues pose a statewide threat and said automatic recounts during the 2024 election cycle are 'a near certainty.'

The letter raised alarm for some other county leaders. In a Pinal County meeting last week, Supervisor Stephen Miller called the problems 'the elephant in the room.'

'We're looking at a real logjam here,' he told his fellow supervisors and Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis. 'These recounts, I don't think physically will be able to be done in time for the next step in our election process. ... This is a train wreck. I don't know how else to put it. It's just not physically possible to be able to do it.'

"This issue cannot be solved by allocating more resources," the officials' letter read. "Election officials face an intricate operational calendar with strict timelines established by federal and state laws."

AZ Central notes:

The deadlines also could pose other problems. Slim margins in the primary election, for instance, may leave election officials across the state scrambling to complete recounts in time to get ballots for the general election sent out to military and overseas voters. The stress and effort involved in completing recounts and preparing ballots simultaneously could up the chances of errors, election officials said.

Calling the issue "the perfect storm," Arizona Association of Counties Executive Director Jennifer Mason said, "Our hope is that if we can find a fix, this will fix it forever."

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AZ Central's full report is available at this link.