GOPer Wants To Throw Out Ballots In Latino-Heavy County — Again

Republican candidate for congress District 2 Martha McSally addresses her supporters at a party at the Radisson Suites in Tucson, Ariz. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/The Tuscaloosa News, A.E. Araiza) ALL LOCAL ... Republican candidate for congress District 2 Martha McSally addresses her supporters at a party at the Radisson Suites in Tucson, Ariz. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/The Tuscaloosa News, A.E. Araiza) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; PAC-12 OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT MORE LESS
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Lawyers for Arizona Republican congressional candidate Martha McSally’s campaign are moving to throw out provisional ballots of voters in Pima County, which has a large Latino population.

McSally is the Republican running against incumbent Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ) in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the tightest races that still hasn’t been called. Right now, McSally is leading Barber by a slim margin of 341 votes according to the Arizona Daily Star. But about 9,000 provisional ballots have not been counted yet, according to Tucson Weekly.

McSally’s lawyers suggested that they could go to court in an effort to stop some of the provisional ballots from being processed. McSally’s campaign, in particular, is focused on six precincts in Pima County, five of them happen to be in the 2nd Congressional District, according to the Tucson Sentinel. Notably, Pima County is 35 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to the United States Census Bureau. Five of those Pima County precincts went for President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in the last presidential election.

It’s actually something of a repeat move for McSally. Back in 2012 she filed a motion to stop the election director in Cochise County — also a county with a lot of Latino voters — from counting a number of provisional ballots.

Eric H. Spencer, an attorney for McSally, emailed F. Ann Rodriguez, the county recorder, on Sunday demanding that provisional ballot forms that did not have a signature from a poll worker as well as a voter be discounted.

In response, Rodriguez and Pima County registrar of voters Chris Roads said they would just keep processing the ballots.

As Tucson Weekly notes though, it’s not clear how many of the yet to be counted votes are in Pima County.

“Martha McSally will do anything to stop Southern Arizonans from making their voice hears at the ballot box,” Barber spokeswoman Ashley Nash-Hahn told Tucson Weekly. “We’ve seen her tricks before when she tried to throw out votes in Cochise County, and we aren’t surprised to see her desperate moves to silence the voters of Southern Arizona.”

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