Republicans continue to cling to the hope of proving news network projections wrong and securing a surprise victory for President Trump in the last days of ballot-counting in Arizona.
As of Thursday morning, President-elect Joe Biden leads Trump by 11,635 votes in Arizona, 49.4% to 49.1%
Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward on Wednesday said she was “still confident that we are going to deliver Arizona’s 11 electoral votes to President Donald J. Trump” as more votes were counted and tabulated.
But after around 15,000 votes were posted that evening, narrowing the margin to Trump being 11,635 votes behind Biden, her tone changed.
“It is razor-thin,” Ward said in a video posted on Twitter Thursday. “That is 0.4% of the vote. There’s about 25,000 votes still out there.”
Ward said that the Trump campaign and Arizona Republicans “are chasing those ballots” that have problems by trying to contact voters who need to correct issues in order for their votes to count. “We are knocking on doors. We are making phone calls. We’re sending texts and using every method possible to make sure every legal vote is counted.”
Ward’s 25,000 figure, though, is misleading.
About 3,500 ballots, almost all of which are in populous Maricopa County, are ready for tabulation and are expected to be posted on Thursday evening. About 2,700 are mail-in ballots that have signatures that need to be verified.
Another 18,500 provisional ballots need to be processed, not all of which will be counted. Provisional ballots include ballots cast by individuals who are ineligible to vote, or who have already voted.
NBC News estimates that about 5,700 of the outstanding provisional ballots will be counted, 6,600 won’t be counted, and 6,000 have yet to be verified.
That means Trump would have to win more than 63% of the 18,400 ballots that may be posted, and if the actual number is lower, then the percentage he needs to win increases. Recently posted batches of votes have Trump well below that percentage. Around 10,000 of the remaining provisional ballots are from Pima County, a Democratic-leaning county.
Arizona provides no way for a candidate to request a recount, and state law only triggers a recount if the margin between the two candidates is less than 0.01% or fewer than 200 votes, whichever is less.
Unwillingness to concede the election despite the lack of a pathway to election extends to the state’s Senate race. Republican Sen. Martha McSally has not conceded her race to Democrat Mark Kelly, despite there being no way for her to win the race, even if 100% of estimated remaining votes were cast for her.
Republicans and the Trump campaign, though, are pursuing other challenges in an attempt to increase the president’s vote share.
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A Trump campaign lawsuit accuses election workers at in-person polling places of improperly directing or causing some voters in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, to press a button that caused those votes to not be counted. The thinking behind the move is that if successful, the case could increase the number of votes for Trump. A court hearing for the case is taking place on Thursday.
Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, asked Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to authorize an independent review of the voting machines used in the case. Hobbs denied that request.
