Races for attorney general and superintendent of public instruction in Arizona are likely headed for a recount no matter the final outcome, even though current Democratic Superintendent Kathy Hoffman conceded to her Republican opponent Tom Horne on Thursday.
Recounts are mandated by state law when a race is decided by half a percentage point or less.
"When the margin is close, the state conducts a recount regardless of whether any candidate or campaign petitions them to do so. And this is an important part of ensuring when an election is close, the state is declaring the right winner," said Deb Otis with the nonprofit group FairVote, which advocates for ranked choice voting, a system that allows voters to pick a set of favored candidates rather than just one.
State law used to trigger an automatic recount when a race was decided by a tenth of a percent but was changed this year.
