Politics

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada’s secretary of state declined Friday to lift a ban on a rural county’s controversial early hand-count of mail-in ballots, saying a modified procedure the county clerk proposed still raises “concerns relating to the integrity of the election.”

Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske ordered Nye County last week to halt its hand-counting of ballots until after polls close on Nov. 8. Her order came after the Nevada Supreme Court issued an opinion siding with the American Civil Liberties Union’s objections to the reading of individual votes out loud.

In a letter to the county Friday, Cegavske invited county officials to update or better explain their proposal for a silent hand-count with more details.

But the move makes it increasingly difficult for Nye County to revise, submit, get approval and carry out plans for the hand-count of mail-in ballots before polls close on Election Day.

Meanwhile, the ACLU and the sprawling, heavily GOP county halfway between Reno and Las Vegas continued to argue over the circumstances that led to an election official, who was openly carrying a gun, removing an ACLU observer from the hand-count that lasted two days before Cegavske suspended it last Thursday night.

Lawyers for Nye County said in a new letter to Cegavske Friday that the chairman of the Nye County GOP Central Committee who was legally armed was acting as a hand-count volunteer trained by county Interim Clerk Mark Kampf when she confronted the ACLU observer she believed was tallying the vote count in violation of the recount rules.

The ACLU quickly responded and the dispute could last past Election Day. But the rejection of the county’s late-hatched proposal to resume the hand-count in silence puts the early count of mail-in ballots almost out of reach by the time polls close.

Kampf proposed three talliers and a control team with two independent verifiers who mostly worked separately, so there would be no reader who called out each ballot or verifier, who looked over the reader’s shoulder.

Cegavske listed a number of concerns in explaining why she would need more details before she allowed the count to resume.

She noted the silent hand-count will require the “complete focused attention” on each ballot by talliers that will prevent them from noticing when other talliers make wrongful marks or mistakes.

“Additionally, there are no provisions in your plan describing the required use of medical-style gloves to further mitigate the risk of cheating or accidental marking, nor a prescribed and standardized device for tallying to ensure any new mark could be quickly identified,” she said.

Nye County is one of the first jurisdictions nationwide to act on election conspiracies related to mistrust in voting machines, though other counties across Nevada have considered using hand-counts in the future.

Earlier Friday, lawyers for the county rejected the ACLU’s recent accusations of a “coordinated partisan election administration effort” in a letter to Cegavske’s office asking for an investigation into the hand-count. Hours later the ACLU responded, doubling down on its concerns.

The ACLU’s complaint about the removal of its observer by Nye County GOP Central Committee Vice Chair Laura Larsen raised concerns about Kampf’s delegation of authority to partisan officials to remove observers from hand-count rooms, particularly during a hand-count process dealing with ballot tabulation.

Along with noting Nevada is an open-carry state, Nye County’s lawyers said the county understood Larsen, a trained volunteer, had never threatened to use the firearm. The county also argued that taking notes jeopardized releasing early voting results and said there was no partisan conspiracy as part of its hand-count plan.

Larsen’s position as the vice chair of Nye County’s GOP central committee “does not limit or invalidate her ability to participate as a poll worker/volunteer,” the response added.

But the ACLU said in a letter to the secretary of state’s office that the county’s response “further emphasizes that Larsen is, in fact, not serving in a neutral capacity” and remains active in partisan leadership.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the first day of hand-counting, Larsen said her role was “making sure things are going the way Mark (Kampf) has set everything up. So, just looking out for the election integrity.” She did not respond to an email requesting comment on Friday.

Of Nye County’s 97 hand-count volunteers, 70 were registered Republicans, 16 were Democrats, 10 were Non-Partisan or had no political party and one was from the Independent American Party, according to data The AP received through a public records request. The county later declined to give the party breakdown for each of the individual hand-count rooms, which had five people each: a reader, a verifier and three talliers.

The county also declined to provide the party breakdown for an updated number of volunteers, which was at 102 on the first day of hand-counting. Former President Donald Trump won about 69% of Nye County in the 2020 election, though he lost Nevada by about 2.4%.

Nye County has just over 33,000 registered voters and planned on using a hand-count as the secondary tabulation method to Dominion tabulators. Kampf has floated the possibility of moving away from tabulators in the 2024 cycle for a sole hand-count.

Two hand-count groups that The AP observed on day one took about three hours each to count a batch of 50 ballots.

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A judge has issued a preliminary injunction halting parts of a new Missouri law that puts limits on what can be done to help register voters and reach out to absentee voters.

Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem sided with the League of Women Voters of Missouri and the state chapter of the NAACP in blocking parts of a law adopted by Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature and signed into law by GOP Gov. Mike Parson.

The court order was dated Oct. 24 and publicized Friday.

Missouri voters on Tuesday will decide a U.S. Senate race that features Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, eight congressional races, and a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, among many other races and ballot measures.

The voter law was enacted after some Republicans raised concerns about election integrity following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. Opponents say the law seeks to reduce the number of Democrats who can vote.

The new law bans paid solicitation of voter registration applications. It requires registration with the state by anyone seeking to sign up more than 10 voters. It requires volunteer solicitors to be Missouri voters. And, it prohibits solicitations aimed at convincing a voter to obtain an absentee ballot application.

Beetem said those provisions unconstitutionally limit free speech.

“The chilling effect of the Challenged Provisions threatens to cause increased voter confusion and decreased voter participation,” Beetem wrote. “The public interest weighs in favor of granting injunctive relief.”

Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel called the voter bill “the latest in a long line of Jim Crow legislation” aimed at disenfranchising people.

A statement from Republican Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office noted that the injunction “only temporarily prohibits the enforcement of certain provisions” of the law, House Bill 1878.

“We look forward to vigorously defending these aspects of HB1878 at trial,” the statement read.

Last month, Beetem dismissed another lawsuit challenging a new requirement that voters show a government-issued photo ID at the polls. That lawsuit was filed on behalf of two women, but Beetem wrote that neither “alleged a specific, concrete, non-speculative injury or legally protectable interest in challenging the photo ID requirement.”

That ruling was appealed, but voters will be required to show a photo ID on Tuesday.

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This story has been updated to correct that the preliminary injunction was dated Oct. 24 and publicized Friday.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A mailer to voters across Kansas suggests removing state Supreme Court justices in Tuesday’s election would protect access to abortion, when abortion rights advocates want to keep them on the bench.

The mailer’s return address says it is from VMCF Inc., of Lenexa, a Kansas City suburb. For a brief time in October, that was the legal name of a charitable foundation run by a prominent Republican direct mail firm’s owner, state records show.

One side says “Kansans pushed back” against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in late June to overturn Roe v. Wade. Voters in August decisively rejected a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. The mailer includes the logo of the pro-amendment side with a red “X” through it.

The mailer’s opposite side urges no votes Tuesday on retaining state Supreme Court justices. Six of the seven justices are on the ballot for yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on the bench another six years.

“LET THEM HEAR YOU AGAIN!” the mailer says under a bigger “NO!”

Abortion rights groups want to retain the justices, and Kansans for Life, the state’s most influential anti-abortion group, wants to oust five of the six. The court in 2019 ruled that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution, spurring GOP legislators to push the proposed anti-abortion amendment.

“It’s clearly designed to misinform,” said state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a Kansas City-area Democrat, whose daughter was sent a mailer.

An online state records search for VMCF brought up documents for the nonprofit Van Meteren Charitable Foundation Inc. and showed that it switched from the longer name to the shorter one on Oct. 24 and back on Oct. 31.

Its 2021 annual report listed the same address as the return address on the mailer. Its only officer was Kristian Van Meteren, who owns the The Singularis Group direct mail firm, also in the Kansas City area. He did not immediately return telephone messages Friday seeking comment.

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The summary and 2nd paragraph of this story have been corrected to show that the company named on the mailer is VMCF, not KMCF.

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Why was I given a provisional ballot?

Provisional ballots are issued to voters at a polling location when there are eligibility questions that prevent them from casting a regular ballot on Election Day.

“They are a fail-safe method to ensure that everyone who is registered to vote gets to cast a ballot,” says Charles Stewart III, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Lab in Boston.

The ballots, which are sometimes known as “challenge” or “affidavit” ballots, are currently offered in all but three states — Idaho, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Those states, however, offer same-day registration, which allows residents to both register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day.

Each state sets its own guidelines for when provisional ballots are required and how they’re processed.

The most common reasons they’re offered include when an election official challenges a voter’s eligibility or when a voter’s name isn’t found on the list of eligible voters, they lack proper identification or do not reside in the precinct in which they’re attempting to vote, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which publishes a nationwide analysis following every general election.

Provisional ballots are set aside for review after polls close on Election Day, but the delay in counting them has led to confusion and allegations of voter fraud in recent elections.

Former President Donald Trump and other election skeptics, for example, questioned why vote counts in some states continued to grow long after polls closed in 2020.

Some have also suggested that being required to fill out a provisional ballot means someone else has already fraudulently voted in your place and that your vote won’t ultimately be counted.

But all provisional ballots are reviewed by election officials in every election, says the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group that serves lawmakers across the country. If a ballot is deemed legitimate, it will be counted, regardless of how wide the margin of victory in an election might be, the organization said.

Election officials are also required to inform voters whether their provisional ballot was counted and the reason if it’s rejected. This is usually in the form of a toll-free telephone number or an online tool.

As provisional ballots are verified, they’re added to the final tally, Stewart said.

“If all you do is compare the vote totals from election night to the totals with the provisional ballots added, it might look like someone has been stuffing the ballot box,” he said in an email. “Instead, people who voted on Election Day are simply having their vote counted after Election Day.”

Provisional ballots represent an increasingly small share of all votes cast, comprising less than 1% of all votes in 2020, down from 1.4% in 2016 and 1.7% in 2012, the two most recent presidential elections, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s most recent analysis.

Overall, roughly 1.7 million provisional ballots were cast nationwide in 2020, of which about 78% were ultimately counted and about 21% were rejected, the commission found.

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The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at: FactCheck@AP.org.

What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

Can noncitizens vote in U.S. elections?

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Republican challenger Scott Jensen held get-out-the-vote rallies at the state Capitol on Friday as they launched their final sprints to Election Day.

Both campaigns brought in the chairs of their national parties — Ronna McDaniel of the Republican National Committee and Jaime Harrison of the Democratic National Committee — as they sought to fire up their core supporters to get their friends and neighbors to vote.

Turnout will be critical not only in the governor’s race but in some other hard-fought statewide contests, plus a pair of congressional races in southern Minnesota and a couple dozen legislative races that will determine control of the state House and Senate.

Walz’ rally kicked off a bus tour of southern Minnesota with Attorney General Keith Ellison, Secretary of State Steve Simon and State Auditor Julie Blaha to Mankato, Austin, Rochester and Winona. Jensen had meetings after his rally with business leaders and owners in Minneapolis, capped by an evening appearance on public television’s “Almanac” show. Both campaigns planned stops Saturday in the Twin Cities suburbs, a crucial battleground for wooing swing voters.

“Knock the doors, call the people, get your members out there, talk to your brother-in-law who drives you friggin’ crazy about this stuff, but tell them to make the vote for the right things,” Walz told his heavily union crowd of around 200 people.

Walz also appealed for unity in a state where political divisions have deepened in recent years, as they have across the country.

“I’m not giving up on this idea of One Minnesota,” Walz said, echoing his campaign theme from four years ago. “I’m not giving up that we can work together to solve problems. I’m not giving up that differences do not divide us and make us enemies. I’m not giving up on this belief.”

Harrison told reporters he didn’t come to Minnesota because he was afraid of the Democrats’ chances on Tuesday. He said he came to stand up for his friends including Ellison.

The Jensen campaign framed its rally as a tribute to veterans, and the crowd of roughly 100 in the Capitol rotunda included many wearing American Legion hats, caps and jackets indicating where they served and a few in fatigues. Jensen thanked them for their service.

“It’s not just about service, it’s about willingness to lead when leaders are called for,” Jensen said. “And I think leaders are called for now more than ever.”

McDaniel told the crowd that they looked great and well rested, but added, “In the next four days I want you to work so hard that you look like crap.”

Afterward, she told reporters, “The fact that I’m coming back to Minnesota four days out from an election means that there’s an opportunity to pick up this governorship if people get out and vote.”

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Bill Sheffield, a former Alaska governor whose term in office was roiled by an impeachment proceeding, has died. He was 94.

A statement provided by friends of Sheffield said he died Friday at his home in Anchorage.

John Pugh, a friend who was the state health commissioner under Sheffield and among those who spent time with him before his death, said Sheffield regularly talked about ways to move Alaska forward. He “had all kinds of ideas, even in the last few months as he was really declining, on economic development in Alaska,” Pugh said.

Sheffield, who was governor from 1982 to 1986, was accused of steering a lease for state office space to a political ally and lying about it. He was not indicted by a grand jury but the panel recommended the Legislature consider impeachment. The state Senate decided there was not enough evidence to impeach.

Sheffield told The Associated Press in 1986 he believed his willingness to make hard choices in a state budget crisis cost him a second term.

Sheffield lost the Democratic party primary that year to Steve Cowper, who went on to be elected governor.

“I probably made some mistakes, but when you want to get things done and you came out of the private sector like I did, you’re going to run into the bureaucracy,″ Sheffield said after the primary loss.

″I didn’t run for governor just to be governor. I did it to do things. There’s a lot of things we need to do in this state and we don’t need to wait forever to get them done,” he said.

Sheffield, a successful hotelier, sold that business in 1987, according to his obituary. He went on to leadership positions with the Alaska Railroad Corp. and the Port of Anchorage.

Former Gov. Sean Parnell, a Republican, in a statement said Sheffield “always envisioned big possibilities for Alaskans and Alaska. He personally lived and experienced the Great Land’s promise: building Alaska businesses, serving in public office and helping others into public office. He dreamed big about Alaska infrastructure and held friends close.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski on social media said Sheffield contributed much to the state. “Bill was a warm and caring person who will be deeply missed but his friendship will not be forgotten,” she said.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, also offered condolences.

Pugh said Sheffield was caring and believed in mentoring young people. One of Sheffield’s directives to members of his administration was to “get out and find out what the needs are and address the needs of the people,” Pugh said.

He said he sees the impeachment proceedings as a footnote in Sheffield’s public service career. He noted accomplishments during Sheffield’s term, including the completion of efforts for the state to take over the Alaska Railroad and support of the Red Dog Mine.

Sheffield is survived by his longtime companion, Cheri McGuire.

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LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida woman was arrested Friday on charges that she voted in Florida and Alaska during the same election cycle over several years.

Cheryl Ann Leslie, 55, of Loxahatchee, was charged with two counts of felony fraud, according to Palm Beach County jail records.

Leslie, who is registered as a Democrat, voted in both the 2020 federal and state primary elections in Florida and Alaska, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement news release. Leslie’s Alaska votes were submitted by absentee ballot, and her Florida votes were submitted early and in person in Palm Beach County, officials said.

Leslie, who works with a senior care facility in Loxahatchee, told investigators that her work as a physician assistant required extensive travel between multiple states.

The Florida Secretary of State’s Office of Election Crimes and Security initially discovered Leslie’s multi-state voting and shared it with FDLE’s Election Crime Unit, officials said. Investigators said they found a pattern of double voting as Leslie also voted in both states in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

Leslie was being held on $1,000 bail. Jail records didn’t list an attorney.

Four people from the Republican stronghold of The Villages retirement community were arrested late last year and early this year on voter fraud charges. Two were registered as Republicans, and two had no party affiliation listed, according to state voting records. Three of them have since pleaded guilty to casting more than one ballot and been sentenced to diversion programs that would allow them to avoid prison time. The fourth awaits trial.

During the last legislative session, Republican lawmakers passed an election police bill pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, who cited as justification unspecified cases of fraud. DeSantis echoed many talking points on voting problems that have gained traction in the GOP after former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen from him.

In August, DeSantis announced the arrests of 20 convicted felons accused of voting illegally in the 2020 election. But voting advocates have said the fact that the defendants were able to successfully register with their local election officials gave them a false sense of eligibility, so the cases were unfair.

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PHOENIX (AP) — Nicole Leonardi initially thought a new newspaper had arrived in her mailbox this week. But a closer look at the “Arizona Catholic Tribune” revealed a different story.

While it had all the attributes of a traditional print newspaper, including a tagline that read “Real data. Real value. Real news,” the pledge did not match the content.

Leonardi, a Democrat living in Tempe, Arizona, who is not Catholic, quickly realized the paper was fake, a partisan conservative publication with content critical of local Democratic candidates. The paper is also not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, which has disavowed it.

“I thought it was a real paper so I pulled it out,” Leonardi said. “It’s only when you dig in a bit when you realize that it’s fully pushing right-wing talking points.”

The Phoenix area was not the only region where papers with the “real news” tagline recently showed up. Similar publications reportedly arrived in mailboxes in cities in Iowa and Illinois.

The Arizona Catholic Tribune’s Facebook page identifies its owner as Franklin Archer, which is part of a multi-state network of partisan online and print publications posing as local media outlets, according to Priyanjana Bengani, a senior research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

“We’ve been here before. They did this in Wisconsin before the 2020 election. They did this in Kansas before the referendum in August about abortion,” Bengani said. “I think the number of physical papers we’ve seen this election cycle is more than what we saw in the 2020 cycle.”

Bengani has traced the networks back to Brian Timpone, who describes himself as a “media executive” on a LinkedIn profile, and Bradley Cameron, a strategy consultant. Cameron, Timpone, the Arizona Catholic Tribune, and several companies that are part of the extended network of publications did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

As part of her research for the Tow Center, Bengani has identified more than 1,200 news sites that are part of the network.

In a series of research reports, Bengani has asserted the websites emerged ahead of the 2020 election and that the outlets use the appearance of journalistic neutrality to amplify partisan messaging.

“It’s a really complicated network. There are lots of different entities that are registered in different states,” Bengani said. She noted that print editions of another publication that is part of the network, the Grand Canyon Times, have been “showing up in Arizona for a couple of months now.”

The Arizona Catholic Tribune that landed in mailboxes this week features a front page story asserting that Democrat Arizona Representatives Tom O’Halleran and Greg Stanton voted to “keep school ‘gender services’ secret from parents,” as well as a teaser claiming that Arizona public school teachers are being encouraged to promote a “child sexualization” reading genre. Such content aligns with Republicans’ efforts to use anti-transgender rhetoric as a wedge issue. Other parts of the paper focus on abortion and one section gave Arizona elected officials grades with their photos, awarding the Republicans As and the Democrats Fs.

A different page features a story devoted to Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s false claim that her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs voted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem from schools.

A spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said in an email that the church is “in no way affiliated or supportive of the ‘Arizona Catholic Tribune’ publication.”

“The Catholic organization and ministries in the Diocese of Phoenix do not engage in partisan politics and do not endorse candidates or parties during any election,” said Brett Meister, the diocese spokesperson.

But experts say the paper is clearly designed to suggest otherwise.

“It seems to be pretty brazen,” said Matthew Jensen, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma who focuses on online misinformation. “The format of the media, the implied endorsement, all of these things, it seems like they are meant to signal an authoritative source.”

Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster who lives in Goodyear, a suburb of Phoenix, said he found a copy of the Arizona Catholic Tribune in his mail Monday. Bentz, who is not Catholic, said political mailers formatted like tabloids are not new in Arizona, though this fake paper is “rhetorically over the top” and does not feature any disclaimer. The publication was likely meant to energize Republican voters and keep moderates from voting for Democrats, he said.

“This one probably went over the line and was a little too blatant in their appeal to conservative voters and it’s drawn the ire of the Catholic Church,” he said. “The tone and tenor of this does not appear to be about increasing turnout but solidifying the base and negating anyone who may be tempted to vote for their opponents.”

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Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed to this report.

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In the battle for Democrats to keep their majority in Congress and Republicans to gain wins in congressional and gubernatorial races, the 2022 midterms will showcase which party is able to extend its reach past the states it currently controls.

Hotly contested U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races in perpetual swing states like Pennsylvania have dominated the news cycle, from social media jabs back and forth between candidates Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz to Oz spending more than $20 million of his own money on his race.

Historic races in Vermont and North Carolina could smash the glass ceiling and elect the leader of Vermont’s state Senate, Becca Balint, as its first woman in Congress and former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley as the state’s first Black senator. She would be the only Black woman in the Senate.

It’s not only critical leadership positions up for grabs in swing states like Georgia and Arizona, issues like vote-by-mail and abortion all have come to the forefront of this midterms cycle — the result of leftover residue from the 2020 election and subsequent denial of the election results perpetrated by former President Donald Trump, who continues to tighten his influence on the GOP.

Data compiled by AP statehouse reporters and race callers in the AP’s Decision Notes series breaks down how each state votes, when votes will be counted and what candidates and issues are on the ballot.

For a look at all 50 states and the election outlook there, find it here.

VOTE BY MAIL

The voting landscape has changed in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While 2020 expanded the use of mail-in voting across the country, it caused slow vote tallying in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia. A new law in Pennsylvania allocated $45 million to counties to help them handle the task of counting mail-in ballots to avoid a protracted post-election count.

Last year, Georgia Republicans mandated an ID for absentee voting, after a surge in mail ballots helped secure victories for Democrats in the presidential contest and twin U.S. Senate runoffs.

In the Maryland primary, state law blocked mail-in ballots from being counted until two days after Election Day. But the state’s highest court has since ruled that counties can start counting mail-ins before Election Day in the general election to avoid delays.

ABORTION ON THE BALLOT

California, Michigan and Vermont are all considering questions that would amend their state constitutions to establish some form of a right to abortion.

The Decision Notes explain that if voters chose to amend the Michigan state constitution, a 91-year-old state law banning abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother would no longer be enforceable. A record number of people — over 750,000 — signed petitions to put the measure on the ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

RACES TO KEEP AN EYE ON

Control of the Senate and House could go directly through Arizona as Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly attempts to win a full term after securing the last two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s seat in 2018. He faces a tough challenge from Trump-backed Republican Blake Masters.

Arizona Republicans backed by Trump — and who back his unfounded claims that he lost because of election fraud — are hoping to snag the governor’s office, secretary of state and attorney general.

One of the most closely watched races in the country is in Nevada. Democrats are trying to hold onto Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat in her contest against Republican Adam Laxalt Another. Laxalt is a steadfast Trump ally and has embraced falsehoods about the 2020 election.

Georgia’s senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is trying to win a full six-year term, and Georgia football icon and Republican challenger Herschel Walker could also determine the outcome of the Senate party breakdown.

But Walker has been embroiled in a scandal when two womenalleged he encouraged and paid for their abortions. Walker has campaigned in absolute opposition to abortion, supporting one of the strictest statewide abortion bans in the country.

Trump’s backing of Walker and former Sen. David Perdue for governor against incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp is retribution for Kemp not going along with lies about the 2020 election being stolen.

North Carolina’s Republican three-term Rep. Ted Budd is one of many Trump-backed candidates this election cycle. Trump’s endorsement of Budd remains a crucial element of Budd’s strategy against Beasley, who has out-fundraised him and received an endorsement from former President Barack Obama.

Democratic-led Maryland will try to regain the governorship held by the departing Larry Hogan, who is only the second Republican in the state’s history to be reelected governor. The candidates for the governorship feature Democrat Wes Moore, who could be the state’s first Black governor against Trump-backed Republican Dan Cox.

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Follow reporter Nardos Haile on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nardoshaile

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Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections. Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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PHOENIX (AP) — An official from a rural Arizona county who has been tapped to hand-count all the ballots from next week’s election was grilled in court Friday by lawyers representing a group of retirees suing to block the effort.

Cochise County Recorder David Stevens said he has plans to count four races on about 40,000 ballots using more than 250 volunteers he’s recruited from three political parties starting after voting ends Tuesday. The Republican vowed to follow the law on how the much smaller hand-count audits are normally done to check machine vote-counting equipment. But he acknowledged he’s bypassing the county elections director, who by law oversees the process and is responsible for holding the ballots.

And responding to questions from the lawyer for the Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans, Lalitha Madduri, Stevens said he planned to count an estimated 30,000 early ballots despite provisions in the law that limit early ballot hand-count audits to 1% or 5,000 ballots, whatever is less, and that they be randomly selected. That bars a full count of the early votes, she said.

“The board did authorize me to do it,” Stevens said. “The court will decide if it’s legal or not. But they did vote, it was a two-to-one vote, they voted for me to do this and a 100% count.”

The two Republican supervisors who voted to do the 100% hand-count rather than the small sample done in every other election were pushed to do so by people who believe former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that fraud or counting problems with voting machines led to his loss in 2020. The lone Democrat on the board opposed the hand-count.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey F. McGinley, who is hearing the case in Bisbee after the local county court declared a conflict, is charged with deciding whether the detailed state law on hand-count audits allows the Cochise County board of supervisors to expand the count to all early ballots. Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor, contends early ballots can’t all be counted under state law.

Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, however, issued an informal opinion last week that said all the ballots can be hand-counted.

McGinley questioned Stevens about the normal recount rules and focused on a section of the election rules written by the secretary of state that allows counties to expand the hand-count at their discretion, which appears nowhere in the law. And he wondered how rules on acceptable margins of errors between hand-count audits would apply to a full recount.

Stevens said his view was that a full hand-count needs no margin and that whatever that count turned out to be would be the one that was officially certified. That runs counter to what the board discussed when it decided to do a full hand-count as a test of the official machine count.

Stephani Stephenson, who lives in the small Cochise County community of St. David and is the named plaintiff in the case, testified that what she called a rushed and abnormal process would potentially jeopardize her vote. She said she has faith in the current system.

“I know that people have worked years to come up with a process,” Stephenson said. “And then suddenly if my county is going down this other road, at this point, no, I do not trust that.”

McGinley was continuing to take testimony at mid-afternoon Friday and has not said when he might rule. Time is of the essence, because Stevens said he want to start hand-counts in about a week.

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Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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