BREAKING: Riggs Defeats Branch By 359 Votes For GOP Nomination For AZ Public Schools Supt; Avoids Automatic Recount By 111 Votes

An automatic recount in the GOP primary battle for State Superintendent of Public Instruction has been avoided by 111 votes, and Frank Riggs gets the nod over Bob Branch, incumbent Diane Douglas and the other two candidates by 359 votes.

Maricopa County posted their final tabulations late this evening, permitting the Secretary of State to post unofficial final results. While Riggs and Branch both show 21.8% of the vote in the 5-way race (21.84% to 21.77%, to be precise), the automatic recount is only triggered if the two are within one-tenth of a percentage point when just the number of ballots cast for them is the divisor.

With that in mind, the gap between Riggs' 124,666 and Branch's 124,307 calculates to 0.0014. That just misses the trigger of 0.0010 or less.

This does not mean that Branch (or Douglas, Tracy Livingston or Jonathan Gelbart, for that matter) could not contest the results. It only means that the state does not have to conduct an automatic recount.

Barring a successful contest, Riggs will face Democratic nominee Kathy Hoffman on November 6.

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