There's a long list of election battles where the GOP candidate was ahead, sometimes significantly, when the polls closed. But as more and more ballots were found, the Democrat suddenly pulled ahead, to win, in the recent midterms.
One report documented at least 10 races for Congress that were led by Republicans at the end of election day, but ended up going to Democrats as additional boxes of ballots were tallied.
In Arizona, there were three such races in just one county, and now the state GOP has decided to do something.
It will audit the results.
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The plan was announced by Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines, who confirmed creation of an independent audit panel to review the actions of the Maricopa County Recorder's Office."
"It is the AZ GOP's hope that this audit will produce a fair, factually based report that will help us better understand what happened in this drawn-out election and address the many concerns of the voters," the group said in a statement.
According to a report in the Daily Caller, there were three statewide Republican candidates "who initially led on election night" but then "saw their races swing the other way."
Those were GOP Rep. Martha McSally, who lost her Senate campaign to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.
"The neck-and-neck race took almost a week to call," the report said, even after McSally led by 16,000 after election day.
Also, "Republican Frank Riggs initially led Democrat Kathy Hoffman in the race for Arizona superintendent of public instruction. He went on to lose about a week later. Katie Hobbs, the Democratic candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, had been trailing Republican Steve Gaynor on Election Day, and The Associated Press went so far as to project Gaynor the winner that night. However, after several days of ballot counting, the Democratic candidate is expected to win that race," the Daily Caller said.
The GOP, however, said there are questions about the Maricopa Recorder's decision to open an emergency voting center before election day, about voting challenges and procedures, and about how ballot counting and results reporting were handled.
The report said Phoenix attorney Stephen Richer will be leading the research, with Statecraft PLLC will be serving as advisory legal counsel.
The county office rejected the oversight as political.
The Maricopa Recorder, Democrat Adrian Fontes, said he had no time for "political games."