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MORE uncounted votes in AZ: could Carmona concession affect provisionals & result if not retracted?

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As has already been detailed in diaries by ThatPoshGirl, Manyamile, and Biscobosco, there are still many uncounted ballots in Arizona, even though the Senate race has been called for Republican Jeff Flake over Democrat Richard Carmona and Carmona has conceded.  ThatPoshGirl and Biscobosco also have new diaries that I would urge everyone to read regarding the effects of the uncounted and recently-counted ballots on the Arizona 2nd district House race.

Last night and earlier today, as reported in some of those previous diaries, we knew of 602,000 early and provisional ballots that have not yet been counted.   ABC 15 news now reports that after adding the ballots from counties that had previously not reported their totals, there are 631,274 known uncounted early and provisional ballots.  This includes "nearly 460,000" early votes, suggesting that there are more than 170,000 provisional ballots in total statewide.  

An ABC 15 news PDF file previously posted by ThatPoshGirl shows that 115,000 of those provisional ballots are from Maricopa County, the home of the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who himself is running for re-election against Democrat Paul Penzone and is currently leading by roughly 90,000 votes.  Given that Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have such a history of anti-Latino racism that they have been sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for civil rights violations, it does not strike me as unreasonable to wonder if the high number of provisional ballots in Maricopa, many of which I have heard are from Latino-heavy areas of western Phoenix, resulted from inappropriate challenges against Latino voters.  If so, the Maricopa provisional ballots may break quite heavily Democratic if and when they are counted.  We do not have sufficient information to be sure of this yet, but it seems to me that we also do not have sufficient information to rule it out.  Only a relatively small number of provisional ballots have been counted yet throughout the state, 3,553 according to the unofficial results linked from the Arizona Secretary of State's website, and for all we know they may not be representative of the vast number of others that remain.

With Carmona trailing by only roughly 80,000 votes, it seems to me unwise for him to have conceded until we know more about the early vote results and especially about the provisional ballots.  Normally, as several people have pointed out, a concession has no binding effect on the result.  But here, it may, because it may discourage some voters from taking the actions necessary to get their provisional ballots counted.  So I was hoping someone might know how to get in touch with the Carmona campaign legal team or others high up in the campaign, and convince Carmona to retract his concession at least until the votes are counted.  Follow me below the slightly tilted orange doodle for more details.


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