Democrat Kris Mayes’ win as Arizona’s new attorney general was validated Thursday after the state held a recount with more than 2.5 million votes. Mayes ultimately held a 0.01 percentage margin over Republican Abe Hamadeh. The recount was initially called when Mayes led Hamadeh by just a little over 500 votes earlier in December. “The purpose of a recount is to ensure accurate vote totals are put forth, as it is reasonable to expect some level of human error in a dynamic, high-stress, deadline intensive process involving counting hundreds of thousands of ballots,” said officials of Pinal County, which found additional votes in the recount for both candidates. Hamadeh wanted a delay because of the newly-found votes and requested for the current Republican attorney general to remain in office until the process was investigated. But a judge denied the request, and Mayes took the lead with an even smaller margin—just 280 votes.
