http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-941396.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – The issue arose when a count of the ballots after last month's
election showed the margin of defeat for Proposition 112 was just
128 votes. That triggered an automatic recount which was
completed Monday. The measure still went down, but by 194 votes.
The secretary of state's office said that's within 99-point-996
percent of 1.5 million people who voted on the measure. But what
makes it interesting is that the recount, like the original
tally, is done by scanner. Maricopa County Elections Director
Karen Osborne said that theoretically, there should be no change.
But she said that would only be in a perfect world.
(Whether you put them through the same machine or not, you have
handled those ballots. They have gone through. Everything in the
world has happened to them. And now you're going to count them
again. And you're going to have stray marks. You're going to have
somebody drops them on the floor.)
Osborne said the closeness of the recount to the original tally
proves the system works. For the record, Proposition 112 would
have required that petitions for ballot measures be submitted to
the state in early May of election years, two months earlier than
the current deadline. There was no active campaign for or against
the measure. For Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer.