Judge rules against suit filed by Tucson council candidate Sadie Shaw

A legal challenge asking for a new primary election for one of Tucson’s City Council seats will not move forward after a ruling from the Pima County Superior Court this week.

Sadie Shaw was challenging incumbent Ward 3 Democrat Kevin Dahl, who won the Aug. 5 primary by just 19 votes.

The slim margin triggered an automatic recount, but that process was paused when Shaw filed suit asking for a new primary — arguing 76 “potential voters” in Ward 3 had been disenfranchised after receiving the wrong ballots.

This week, Pima County Superior Court Judge Wayne Yehling ruled not to vacate the election results.

“The court determined that based on the evidence presented, there wasn’t sufficient evidence of disenfranchisement,” said Jim Barton, one of the attorneys representing Shaw and a Ward 3 voter who appeared as a second plaintiff. “In other words, although it seems obvious that there was some interference with these folks being able to vote, that it wasn’t enough to amount to disfranchisement.”

Barton says attorneys and the Shaw campaign were on a tight deadline to build up their case, and unlike in other legal challenges where the question came up, it was hard to determine how people would have voted in this small, city primary race.

“That kind of projection is not really available when you're talking about, you know, 76 votes and 25 precincts in this kind of election — also, they're all Democrats, because it's a primary, so with that context it would be much more difficult to do that,” he said. “The pace is breakneck on these things because we run our primary elections and then we immediately print our general election ballots, like within weeks after.”

Late last month, the Recorder’s Office said it had sent out almost 1,300 ballots showing the wrong political party, after a data mistake from the city, and the office later determined fewer voters than expected had actually been impacted by the error.

City attorneys argued this week that votes still had the opportunity to cast ballots once the mistake had been corrected. Barton says his clients are declining to file an appeal. The Ward 3 recount will still take place.

Arizona has seen similar legal challenges asking for election results to be vacated within the last year — like one case filed by a candidate over a contested Phoenix Union School High School Governing Board race, and another in Cochise County.