The Secretary of State’s Office says it erroneously declared the wrong winner in the Green Party’s U.S. Senate primary.
Write-in candidate Eduardo Quintana received 282 write-in votes, the most of any candidate. But the canvass signed by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes on Thursday declared Mike Norton the winner.
Norton, whose name appeared on the ballot, received 180 votes. Arturo Hernandez, a third candidate in the race, received 106 votes.
After being contacted by KJZZ News, the Secretary of State’s Office said it is correcting the error.
“We are correcting the canvass [to] reflect that outcome,” said Aaron Thacker, a spokesman for the secretary of state.
Quintana said he became concerned when the Secretary of State’s Office did not declare him the winner in the days after counties began tallying the results of the July primary elections.
It’s still unclear what caused the issue, but Thacker said the secretary of state plans to issue a statement on the mixup.
Arizona Green Party Chair Cody Hannah said he contacted the Secretary of State’s Office this morning after the canvass appeared to show Norton won the race despite showing Quintana with more votes.
Hannah said he believes the miscue resulted from a misapplication of a state law governing how primary election write-in candidates can qualify for the general election ballot.
The law states that write-in candidates for a party “qualified for continued representation on the official ballot” must earn votes equal to or greater than number of signatures they needed to gather to qualify for the primary ballot.
U.S. Senate candidates needed to gather at least 1,288 signatures to qualify for the Green Party primary, well above the votes Quintana earned.
But only the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties have qualified for continued statewide representation, according to the Secretary of State Office's website.
Hannah said the Arizona Green Party, which only received state recognition in December, has not yet qualified for continued representation on the ballot. That means a different part of the law applies to the Green Party primary race, which only requires a write-in candidate to receive the most votes to win.
Quintana said the confusion threatens to undermine voter confidence in elections.
“We’re supposed to be able to run for office when we disagree on certain policies, and the public compares our opinions and decides who to vote for, and we’re elected in a Democratic way,” Quintana said.
The Arizona Green Party has long said that Quintana, chairman of the Pima County Green Party, is the only candidate backed by the party that ran in its U.S. Senate primary. They accused Norton and fellow candidate Arturo Hernandez of being backed by Democrats and Republicans.
Norton, whose campaign finance reports show backing from Democratic megadonors, admitted he was recruited by Republicans and Democrats who feared Hernandez was a straw candidate in the race to help Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake defeat Congressman Ruben Gallego, the Democratic nominee, in November.
Norton, who praised Quintana’s apparent victory last week, accused Hernandez of being a Republican plant, because his campaign hired a GOP attorney and a campaign finance consultant with ties to Republican politics.
Hernandez, who did not file any campaign finance reports, did not respond to requests for comment.
