A federal judge last week

rejected an effort by Congressman Ron Barber’s campaign to include an additional 133 votes that were disqualified for administrative reasons in the 2014 election.

The decision cleared the way for Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett to certify the results of the Nov. 4 election, in which Republican challenger Martha McSally outpolled Barber by 161 votes. Because the race is so close, a state-mandated recount is scheduled to follow the certification.

Bennett certified the results on Monday, Dec. 2, and the recount was scheduled to begin this week.

In her Thanksgiving ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Cindy Jorgenson said that attorneys for Barber, as well as three of the voters who saw their votes disqualified, failed to show that the votes were tossed out on a systemic basis, rather than being the kind of “garden variety” errors that occur in an election.

“Thus, while the Court is not unsympathetic to the plight of individual voters whose ballots may have been improperly rejected, the Court finds that plaintiffs have not met their burden to show that persuasive error that undermines the integrity of the election,” Jorgenson wrote.

Barber Campaign Manager Kyle Quinn-Quesada that he was “disappointed” in Jorgenson’s ruling but added that Barber’s team remained “committed to ensuring that Southern Arizonans are able to trust the integrity of this election, and we thank the voters who not only took the time to vote in this election, but who came forward to ask that their voices be heard. We look forward to an open and transparent recount that will allow all Arizonans to have confidence in the final outcome of the election.”

Barber attorney Kevin J. Hamilton said last week that the campaign was going to court to protect the rights of voters whose ballots were rejected.

“The voters cast their ballots in accordance with federal and state law, in some cases at the specific direction of poll workers, but their ballots weren’t counted,” Hamilton said. “If you do everything right, if you’re entitled to vote in this election, and you cast your ballot, that ballot ought to be counted.”

Hamilton knows his way around recounts. He and attorney Ezra Reese, who is also on Barber’s legal team, have between them worked on several recounts, including in a 2008 Minnesota contest in which Al Franken came back from a deficit of a few hundred votes to win his U.S. Senate seat and a 2004 recount in the Washington governor’s race that put Democrat Christine Gregoire on top. Since the election, they’ve worked with Team Barber to send operatives door-to-door talking to voters whose ballots had been disqualified and collecting declarations.

The loss in court last week followed unsuccessful efforts to ask the boards of supervisors in Pima and Cochise counties and Secretary of State Ken Bennett to delay a certification of the election until more investigation—and perhaps legal action—could put some of the disqualified ballots back into the mix, but the supervisors in both counties rejected the idea.

Team Barber’s legal team’s case rested on whether the deadlines and other rules to remedy the disqualified ballots were arbitrary, so the ballots should be counted ahead of any recount as, the “there are few harms greater and more impossible to repair than being stripped of the constitutional right to vote. … And it is beyond dispute that there is a compelling public interest in protecting the voting rights of Arizona citizens and ensuring the integrity of elections.”

Among the plaintiffs: 81-year-old Lea Goodwine-Cesarec, who says with considerable pride that she hasn’t missed voting in a congressional election since she first became eligible to vote some six decades ago.

Goodwine-Cesarec moved just before the election and believed she had updated her address with a phone call to the County Recorder’s Office. But when she ended up in the wrong precinct on Election Day, she says she was told to vote a provisional ballot instead of being directed to the proper polling place.

These sorts of mix-ups are not uncommon on Election Day; there usually aren’t enough to sway a race one way or another. But with a recount looming and a 161-vote margin, there’s a scramble on to make every vote count.

Goodwine-Cesarec sure thinks her ballot ought to be counted. She still can’t believe her vote was “thrown in the trash.”

“I really think that it was just plain wrong,” Goodwine-Cesarec says. “It’s pretty irritating to think that my vote was not counted because I wanted to vote. I got out and voted. I submitted the vote and it did not count. And that’s just wrong.”

This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2014.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

35 replies on “Ron and the recount”

  1. I notice Ron Barber did not bring in Al Sharpton to call for rioting. Very Democratic of him.

    If we add all the votes that Ron wants included, and all the votes that Martha wants included,…Ron still loses.

    Why doesn’t he start running more TV ads? Or is he saving his money for the “next” election?

  2. Barber wants the recount, he just doesn’t want all of the illegal alien votes discovered. Waling a tightrope.

  3. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid to say, that in my opinion, if all the illegals votes were removed Ron might not even have 30 % of the vote!!!

  5. If real Arizonans can’t vote properly, I have to think if illegals are casting votes, somebody else is hand delivering them. Either to a polling place or through the mail.

    Our elections have become so filthy dirty.

  6. the ‘white power’ foot soldiers are certainly out in full force today. those are some bombastic claims there “Rick” (if that is your real name). Have any evidence to support it? what incentive do “illegals” have to vote, and apparently in mass numbers, when they know that if they get caught, they will get deported by La Migra? i’ll give you a hint, you paranoid delusional fucktards. They don’t. Your world views are so fucking twisted, they make the joker look like a fucking boy scout.

  7. How ignorant do you really have to be to think that “illegals” are actually going to go vote when we cannot even get 50% of “legal” Americans to vote? If you honestly believe illegals are trying to vote then you better run “Chicken Little” because the sky is falling in your own imaginary diluted world. Seriously, do you honestly think that any “illegal” would voluntarily show up somewhere and show their “fake ID”? Let me guess, because you heard it at church?

  8. Yo’ PC, keep sucking on that govt. teat libtard! You question the illegal voting going on (and it’s happening all across the U.S. as proven in the voter fraud case against Acorn in the 08′ election), so I guess that explains why La Retarded Raza went on the net to direct illegals where to go to vote, knowing that there were pro-Amnesty monitors that wouldn’t challenge nor ask for ID. Once again, we see what the Libtards resort to when they can’t come up with facts.

  9. Yo’ sissy boy PC, you are a joke! You call me racist (typical libtard response when you have no facts to back up your pathetic and sissified rhetoric)when you resort to making racist references ie; “Niggars and Commie Jews”. Me thinks thou doth protest too much (and you are not even smart enough to hide your own diseased perceptions), bitch!
    BTW, learn how to spell! Maybe you shouldn’t have dropped out of 6th grade after all.

  11. Ooooh wow! You got me there didn’t you libtard? Go back and suck on your bong tardo! In this convo your out of your class, which is zero. There’s a pothead grp. that hangs out on 4th Ave. in Tuc. that I’m sure you would get along with real well.

  13. Wow! You must have figured out how to use that spell check! A whole sentence without a single mistake. You go girl!

  15. My husband’s vote wasn’t counted, because he registered too ‘late’ (He was deployed, his FL ID expired while he was gone, so he needed to get an AZ ID, and couldn’t until he got home). No one ever told him it was ‘too late’ to register, and he was entered into the system of resident voters accordingly. He went to the right polling place, was on the list of voters expected, and did everything just how he should have, without a hiccup or red flag on voting day. Still, they didn’t count his vote…. because ????
    So basically, a member of the U.S. military got his vote thrown out because he was deployed at a time that was inconvenient for Arizona.
    He has since signed a petition to get it counted, and hopefully they will act like they care about what the people of this city want. Military members bust their asses for this country and deserve to be treated fairly when it comes to electing the people who literally have a hand in their futures. We love Tucson and are happy to be active parts of the system, I am just disheartened that this is our first experience with it.

  16. Kari, sorry to hear about your husband’s dilemma. The city is primarily and has been for some time, been run by liberals from the mayor on down. The elections process has been suspect for some time now and efforts are being made to insure that the fraud and fairness are dealt with. It seems that it is and uphill battle but when you have over 250,000 illegals in or near it, that there are those who wish not to fix the problem. Thanks to members of the military, we still have free elections. Sort of…..

  17. Kari, remember the election Al Gore thought he won?

    But it was the drama taking place behind the scenes, in the darker recesses of American politics where Democrats do what they do best, that was most appalling to Republicans and to other fair-minded people. Realizing that military people normally vote heavily Republican, Democratic election law attorney, Mark Herron, distributed a five-page letter to the Gore organization and to Democratic organizations all across Florida, instructing them on the many ways that overseas military absentee ballots could be challenged. The letter was distributed on November 15 when Bush was still leading by a razor-thin margin of 300 votes.

    As Herron indicated in his letter, State and Federal law provided for the counting of qualified overseas absentee ballots for up to ten days after the day of the election. However, he continued, “You are being asked to review these overseas absentee ballots to make a determination whether acceptance by the supervisor of elections and/or the county canvassing board is legal under Florida law. A challenge to these ballots must be made prior to the time that the ballot is removed from the mailing envelope…”

    “Suppressing the Military Vote”

    http://www.aim.org/guest-column/suppressing-the-military-vote%E2%80%A6-again/

  18. Nice shot, Rat. The issue of the military ballots being lost, changed, coerced, etc. has been at large for some time now with the Demorats doing everything they can to impact negatively.

  19. This one was even worse :

    So, why aren’t soldiers voting? In many cases they simply can’t, and they have their commander in chief, President Obama, to blame.

    Hundreds of thousands of our uniformed personnel have been shut out of the process, and we can thank the Obama administration and even the Obama campaign for this tragedy. After poor turnout in 2008, Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (Move) Act to ensure that all military are provided with the opportunity to vote. The act put standards in place, such as mailing absentee ballots no later than 45 days before an election and requiring installation voting assistance offices to be built at most military bases and posts.

    The Pentagon has utterly failed to meet these standards.

    Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/5/obama-suppressing-the-military-vote/#ixzz3Kxze6sBQ
    Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

  21. We had no problems voting overseas, always got our absentee ballots, etc. And we are from Florida originally, from the county that was thrown out during the first Bush election, so we are used to this, sadly. I guess I was just hoping AZ would be different, but in actuality my early ballot never even showed up in the mail this year.

  22. Many military personnel voted overseas,…but their ballots were never counted.

    Their report in 2010 found that fewer members voted and that many states were still not complying with the 45 day requirement for ballots, something they estimate left 65,000 military voters out in the cold.

    “24 states participated in the report, which showed that of 300,000 plus absentee ballots requested by military personnel, less than a third were counted in the election,”

    http://ivn.us/2013/10/11/less-5-percent-military-votes-count-experts-say/

  23. Yo’ PC, you done got real quiet didn’t you? Whassamatta’ all that stuff Rat been throwing out there about illegals and how the military is getting trashed with their votes, it got you kinda’ quiet don’t it? Yeah, once the facts start coming out, the libtards make like roaches when someone turns the kitchen light on! Pathetic excuses for Americans for sure!

  24. You have to scour numerous outlets to get a well rounded picture. We are now a country that has drawn up boundary lines for thought.

    We did that the last time about 1860…..

    Keep it civil.

  25. Oh, I’m a troll alright, but I guess I have my limits, like arguing with Neo-Confederates who openly espouse the murdering of public officials.
    Stay classy, RickRon.

  28. For you doubters, there have been convictions in Arizona for illegal aliens voting. You can do a search and fine actual news reports written at the time.

  29. That’s just it AZRLS, you have to desire the truth to actually look for it. Others are content to believe what NBC tells them.

  30. Vroom said in an Nov. 6 filing with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Arizona District she was ordered to drop prosecutions of illegal aliens with prior DUI convictions because, in the alleged words of senior ICE official Jim Stolley, “We don’t give a shit about that. Let it go.”

    She also details pressure from supervisors to drop prosecutions of illegal aliens with identify theft convictions, including one who registered to vote “not once, but twice, both times falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen,” according to the filing.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/10/Lawsuit-ICE-Prosecutors-Pressured-To-Release-Criminal-Aliens

    Those of you that criticize the source fall into your own trap of “condoned ignorance.”

  32. Even if this lady wins by this minor margin, she is a one term person who merely took advantage of the mid term low voter turn out, had she tried to run like last time in a normal cycle she would have lost like she did then!

  33. I was waiting in line to vote and the person ahead of me was trying to use his Sonoran driver’s license as ID. The registrar patiently explained that it wasn’t permissible. Since he didn’t speak English, it took a while to sink in. He finally resolved to go to the ” Democrat office” to get it straightened out. This wasn’t the McSally/Barber district, ( it is the gerrymandered one next to it) . I have no idea if the ” office” got him his ID.

  34. It is a clear reflection of the very sad times we live in when an ex-liberal such as myself is actually happy that a far-right loony tune named Martha McSally won this election. I am so fed up with Illegals and the entitlements and special treatments that the feds are giving them that I am happy about booting out every single politician who goes along with that goal – even if the replacement is a horrible choice.

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