Trump criticizes vote count in Arizona

President Trump criticized the vote count effort in Arizona’s tight Senate race, where Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has taken a narrow lead over Republican Rep. Martha McSally with half a million votes yet to be counted. 

“Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!” Trump tweeted, offering no evidence for his claim regarding signatures.

Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018

{mosads} Since Tuesday’s election, the president has inserted himself into several of the country’s closest and most high-profile races where a winner has yet to be declared. 

Sinema currently leads McSally by just 9,163 votes out of nearly 2 million cast, a margin of just 0.48 percentage points. 

A judge on Thursday rejected GOP efforts to challenge the state’s mail-in ballot counting procedures, according to The Associated Press.

But the judge, Margaret R. Mahoney, set a hearing for Friday on the GOP lawsuit regarding about 5,600 votes from Maricopa County, which has been steadily releasing numbers on mail-in ballots since Tuesday’s election.

Some county recorders have been calling voters who submitted mail-in ballots with signatures that don’t match what’s on file to verify their signature. Republicans allege in the suit that this procedure violates state law.

Mahoney on Thursday said it was too soon to tell those counties to stop contacting those voters. The judge also wouldn’t tell the counties to temporarily separate mail ballots verified through this procedure.

Other states are also seeing undecided races. In Georgia, Republican nominee Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams are locked in a tight governor’s race as absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted.

According to The Associated Press, Kemp currently holds a 62,709-vote lead, with 100 percent of precincts reporting. But the race has not yet been called by AP or major news outlets.

Meanwhile, Florida’s gubernatorial race between Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D) and former Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) appeared to be moving towards a recount, while the Senate race between incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D) and Gov. Rick Scott (R) is even tighter.

A recount is automatically triggered in Florida if two candidates are within 0.5 points of each other, and a hand recount is mandated with a margin of 0.25 points or less. 

President Trump slammed the vote-counting process in Florida, suggesting that “election fraud” had taken place in Broward and Palm Beach counties, where a legal fight between Nelson and Scott is expected to focus on.

“Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!” Trump said on Twitter Thursday night. 

Addressing reporters on Friday, Trump again slammed the vote-counting process taking place in Florida’s Broward County.

“If you look at Broward County, they have had a horrible history,” Trump told reporters at the White House. 

“Bad things are going on in Broward Country, really bad things. We’ve been to court, had a lot of drama. We won. I say this: We easily won. But every hour it seems to be going down. I think that people have to look at it very, very cautiously,” he also said.