Arizona's Vote Count vs. California's, and Maricopa County Has 109,000 85,300 66,550 Ballots Left

That's not to discount the real angst many here felt on election day. And there are real problems to be addressed: long lines, poll worker training, certain legislative restrictions on provisionals, not to mention Prop 200, Arizona's voter-ID law, passed in 2004 by popular vote.

The county's communications with the public need to be improved. And if someone believes he or she was denied the right to vote in this election, obviously that should be investigated.

Elections lawyer Jim Barton, who serves as counsel to the Arizona Democratic Party, told me that he was monitoring the polls on election day, and he saw a number of flaws in the system, mainly administrative issues, but serious nonetheless.

He said he encountered only one actual report of malicious voter suppression on election day, but the report was not substantiated when both the party and county elections sent people to check it out.

Barton was also concerned that instead of directing voters to their proper polling place, poll workers might have just given people provisional ballots to fill out then and there. More out of laziness than anything.

The problem with that is, if the ballots are cast in the wrong polling place, they don't count.

I asked him about the concern that there was a lot of overt voter suppression in this election, beginning with Maricopa County flubbing the election date on Spanish language materials.

"Our obsession with finding malicious voter suppression has the potential for preventing us from addressing the real dangers [in our voting system]," he suggested.

I tend to agree. That's not to say Arizona elections are ever free of shenanigans. One need only think of Darin Mitchell, Constantin Querard, or Olivia Cortes.

And the Jeff Flake robo-calls may be another recent example.

In any case, here are the Friday updates on key elections from Maricopa County and SOS:

Arpaio v. Penzone

ARPAIO 644,223 51.17
PENZONE 557,444 44.28
STAUFFER 57,239 4.55

Arpaio is up 86,779 votes, or 6.89 percent.

Carmona v. Flake

CARMONA 987,776 45.90
FLAKE 1,065,383 49.50

Flake leads Carmona by 77,607 votes, or 3.6 points.

Barber v. McSally

MCSALLY 141,771 49.66
BARBER 143,173 50.15

Barber is up by 1,402 votes, or 0.49 percent.

UPDATE 11/17/12:

This just in from the Maricopa County Recorder's office: After today's count, there are approximately 85,300 ballots remaining, some 4,300 early ballots, and 81,000 provisionals.

Not much change in the races above, but you can read the latest results for yourself at,

http://www.azsos.gov

and

http://recorder.maricopa.gov/web/elections.aspx

UPDATE 11/18/12:

According to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, after today's count, 66,550 ballots remain in-county, 65,000 provisionals, and 1,550 earlies.

There's a little narrowing in the Arpaio v. Penzone numbers, but at a glacial pace. Currently, Arpaio's up 6.48 percent, or 84,259 votes.

But if Penzone's numbers are added to Stauffer's look how close it becomes: 1.9 percent, with the anti-Joe vote at 49.05 and the pro Joe vote at 50.95.

And the anti-Joe vote is at 637,299, or a mere 24,729 votes behind Joe, in this scenario.

ARPAIO 662,028 50.95
PENZONE 577,769 44.47
STAUFFER 59,530 4.58

Carmona v. Flake is tighter than a Grecian vase:

CARMONA 1,014,693 46.05
FLAKE 1,086,737 49.32

Flake's up by 3.27%, or 72,044 votes. Will be interesting to see how close this one gets. I don't know what Pima has right now. Regardless, the math is not there for a reversal. Carmona would have to win almost all of the votes remaining.