Christine Jones, a Republican candidate for congress, is asking Arizona's attorney general and secretary of state to investigate anomalies in primary election voting in Arizona's 5th Congressional District.
Jones trails Arizona State Senate President Andy Biggs by 16 votes in the August 30 primary. Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell will start a recount of all ballots in the race as early as Tuesday.
In a letter to Mark Brnovich and Michele Reagan, Jones outlines the anomalies she wants investigated.
First, she says the last batches of ballots, tabulated three days after the vote, showed a surge in votes for Biggs. Second, Jones says there was a noticeable drop in late ballots from Chandler precincts, which favored Jones. Third, she says there was an inordinately high number of over votes in CD 5. Over vote ballots are rejected from being counted because more than one candidate is selected in a particular race.
Last week, Jones asked a Maricopa County judge to force certain provisional and early ballots to be counted in CD 5, after election officials had rejected them. The judge allowed 18 additional votes to be counted, but they extended Biggs' lead from 9 to 16.
