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Transcripts

November 6, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
Post-election analysis
In-Studio Guests:
Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell;
Arizona Republic Editorial Page editor Keven Willey

> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," Election 2002, a wild ride for voters and candidates. We'll talk about the winners and losers and what is still to be decided. Plus, three ballot propositions fighting to determine the fate of Indian gaming in Arizona. We take a look at why one proposition prevailed. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Final ballots are being tallied up and election results continue to come in. As of now, democratic gubernatorial candidate Janet Napolitano leading by 22,000 votes. County elections official saying they will complete all the ballot counting by Monday. Joining me now to talk about that, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell. You know, Helen, it's kind of ironic, early voting turned election day into election month. And now it's also turning election night into election week.

>> Helen Purcell: It seems like that, yes.

>> Michael Grant: Tell us why. I know you're getting sick of this, but why is it that we really -- I mean, we've got a universe of almost 25% or so of the people who turned out and those ballots remaining to be counted.

>> Helen Purcell: Right. Let me tell you what we have in the house. 98,000 ballots that were either received on election day or ones that we had not processed up to the time that we quit counting on election day. Those are early ballots. 53,000 early ballots dropped off at the polling place on election day. 31,000 ballots to be verified. We have people moving around so much. So we're looking at 182,000 ballots out there that still haven't been dealt with.

>> Michael: There is a verification process that you have to go through on all of these 182,000 ballots. Will that disqualify maybe not many of them, but some of them?

>> Helen Purcell: Not many of them. Probably on the ballots to be verified we will go ahead and count about 95% of those. You're just going to find a few on the early ballots, possibly where somebody has forgotten to sign the front of the early ballot. Therefore, we can't accept it because it doesn't have a signature and we have to match every signature against the signature on the voter registration roles.

Michael: Is that part of what makes this a painstaking and certainly slow process compared to the fact you process 900,000 or a million ballots or so in one day?

>> Helen Purcell: That's right.

>> Michael: That slows it down, the verification process?

>> Helen Purcell: Absolutely.

>> Michael: Does the counting process and verification process occur simultaneously? Have you essentially got two streams of work product going on there?

>> Helen Purcell: Actually, We have three streams. You have verification on early ballots, on the ones to be verified and counting. Three processes going on at the same time.

>> Michael: All counties are going through this process, are they not? Maricopa County by virtue of its population has most of these in play.

>> Helen Purcell: That's right. Every single county has some, you might have some smaller counties that are finished. They have ability to do most of the work on election day if not at least finished by the next day. Ours is sheer volume. We have 58% of the registered voters in the state are in Maricopa County.

>>Michael: Now, bring me up to date on what happened this afternoon. How many did you get counted and with particular reference to the governor's race.

>> Helen Purcell: We counted an additional 24,000-plus today. And if you recall, when we gave you the results of the early voting that we had counted through yesterday, at about 200,000, Janet Napolitano was ahead by about 2600. And with the 24,000 that we counted today, that lead of hers in those early ballots has dropped to about 400. Salmon picked up about 2100, a little over 2100.

>> Michael: Sounds like, Janet Napolitano got about 10,000 of those, Matt salmon got about 12,000, and Dick Mahoney and Barry Hess got about 2,000.

>> Helen Purcell: That's right.

>> Michael: Is the 25,000 pace what you expect for the next three, four, five days? Or will that accelerate somewhat?

>> Helen Purcell: I hope it will accelerate somewhat. We had hoped to count about 30,000 today, but there is not as much processing that goes on on election day of the ballots already in house because we are getting ready for election night. That slows it down a little bit. Part of it was not 30,000 had been processed, everything -- we counted everything processed through today. I hope that will increase.

>> Michael: The target for getting this done is?

>> Helen Purcell: I hope on Monday. We will certainly work 24/7 until we get there we have a holiday coming up. The law gives us five business days, take away the weekend and Monday being a holiday, that would be Wednesday. I would certainly hope that we could have it done by Monday.

>> Michael: Helen Purcell, we appreciate the information.

>> Michael: Tension was high last night at the Democratic and Republican party campaign headquarters. After a lot of campaigning and debating, many of the higher profile statewide candidates didn't get to make those victory speeches. In a moment, we'll take a look at the candidates and the races. First, Merry Lucero has a look at some of last night's election highlights.

>> Merry Lucero: General election night. Cautiously optimistic was the phrase of the evening.

>> Janet Napolitano: Whatever the outcome of this election, tonight it is time to put the campaign signs down -- well, not right now, in a little bit.

>> Matt Salmon: I've talked with our folks about where we stand. The fact is, Maricopa County still has 150,000 outstanding ballots. Still to be counted.

>> Merry Lucero: Neither Democrat Janet Napolitano nor Republican Matt salmon would declare winning, but the republican party gave a hard last minute push for votes.

>> Matt Salmon: the fact is 150,000 outstanding ballots in Maricopa. Also, the tremendous phone banks over the last several days, to get out the early ballots, those that hadn't mailed them, bring them to the polls. There's a phenomenal number of those not counted yet and I can guarantee you those are Salmon votes.

>>Merry Lucero: Napolitano showed a slight lead early in the evening. Credit for that possibly due to the state democratic party leader putting more than two million of his own money into the election.

>> Janet Napolitano: We do know there is not a victory yet. We do know that the voters of Arizona have sent a wake-up call to government. The call came from polling sites and kitchen tables, wherever Arizonans cast ballots.

>> Helen Purcell: We have counted a little over 200,000 of the early ballots so we have another 85,000 that I'm aware of that were in the house by about 2:00 this afternoon. Then we had the early ballots that came in the mail today. The early ballots that were dropped off at the polling place today. We are looking at a very high number that we have yet to process and count.

>> Merry Lucero: The Maricopa County elections department by law has five business days to do that and says it will take all of it. In the race for attorney gen general, Democrat Terry Goddard's confidence was more solid.

>> Terry Goddard: I'm very optimistic. It feels good. The sense around the state is extremely positive. I felt we put together the critical pieces that you need to win in Arizona. You never know until the election returns are finished whether it's actually going to come out the way you hope it will.

>> Merry Lucero: Goddard beat out Andrew Thomas and Democrats did better in Maricopa County than in many years. One race where money seemed to make a difference, superintendent of public instruction. Republican candidate Tom Horne, the clear victor after spending 500,000 of his own cash.

>>Tom Horne: 99% of Maricopa County has reported, 94% of Pima County, so it looks like we've been elected.

>> Merry Lucero: While the state Democratic party's chant is to take back the state, that probably won't be known until later this week when after a tough election and much negative campaigning candidates and voters can finally exhale.

>> Michael Grant: Here to talk about the outcome of the election and the races that are still to be decided, Arizona Republic Editorial Page editor, Keven Willey. Actually, the discussion on the outcome of the election will be quite short and the discussion about the race is till to be decided will be very long. Let's go with the breaking news this afternoon, that 24,000 I was just talking to Helen Purcell about, Matt Salmon has got to do better than taking 12,000 of every 24,000 votes.

>> Keven Willey: That's true. In fact, if you continue that ratio out over the rest of the 180,000 that they have yet to count, that means he may pick up something like 16 or 17,000 votes in this race, which is substantial, but he starts out at a 26,000 vote deficit. So as long as this trend line continues it doesn't look like it is possible for him to do that. Keep in mind, this is Maricopa County. This is supposed to be Matt Salmon's stronghold. It will, the gap will widen I presume when you consider the uncounted votes in rural counties around the state.

>> Michael Grant: In particular, Pima County has got a universe of the same ballots of roughly 25,000 or so, while frequently the D's win Pima County by the same kind of margin that the R's do here. That narrows the available universe of votes that Matt salmon has to work with to whittle at the Napolitano lead.

>> Keven Willey: Napolitano on election day did much better in Pima County than salmon did. Another way to think about this is that in essence for every two votes that Janet Napolitano gets out of these uncounted ballots, Matt Salmon must get three votes roughly speaking. For every two, he has to get three. That is a greater margin than he achieved either on election day and it is also a greater margin than he achieved in early ballots that were counted before election day. For him to get that three votes for every two of hers he has to do something dramatically different than in either of the previous tests which seems unlikely.

>> Michael: If you look at today's sample as a sample, it was six of five. That's not three for two.

>> Keven Willey: It's just not enough. It's not going to happen.

>> Michael: Countervailing theory, the tracking polls and those kind of things indicated the final 10 days of the campaign he was coming on strong. These are by definition, if there is such a thing, late early ballots.

>> Keven Willey: We need to get new terminology.

>> Michael Grant: So, they should break more heavily for Matt. What do you think about that?

>> Keven Willey: I think there's some validity to it. They have to break really heavily for Matt, by a huge margin. And again, when you compare that to also that this is Maricopa County only and this is his stronghold and he is having trouble, by the time you factor in the rest of the state, I think the deck is stacked against him at this point quite considerably.

>> Michael Grant: In fact, I guess we should note the associated press thinks not only the deck is stacked against him, the deck has been folded up and put away, it declared Janet Napolitano the victor of the governor's race this afternoon. We'll see. You go down the ballot, you have a close race between Jan Brewer and Chris Cummiskey. And treasurer's race, David Petersen and Ruth Solomon. There are a series of other fairly close contests, including a couple of the Corporation Commission races. But it seems to me, normally the Republican is on top of those tight races. It seems to me unlikely this universe of votes is probably going to change any of the those outcomes. Would you agree?

>> Keven Willey: I doubt it. Democrats hold one office, that's the attorney general Janet Napolitano. When this is all said and done, Democrats will double and possibly triple that. Janet as governor, Terry Goddard as attorney general and possibly George Cunningham at Corporation Commission. That's one way of looking at it and saying Democrats relative to the rest of country where the Republicans swept, essentially, did fairly well in Arizona. They certainly picked up some representation on the state level and even the races they lose like Ruth Solomon's to David Petersen will be by a whisker. They will not control the statewide offices.

>> Michael Grant: Incidentally, Let me correct myself, I meant to say associated press declared Janet Napolitano the victor and Matt salmon the loser. Interesting development in the state legislature. Jeff Flake is going to be the Speaker of the House. He is from northeast, Arizona, snowflake. Ken Bennett is going to be president of the Senate, from Prescott. You and I were talking about this. Two rural legislators in control of both houses. That has not happened for a long time.

>> Keven Willey: We sat here and tried to pick our brains a little bit about how far back do you have to go before that's happened. Off the top of our heads, I can't think of that happening in my 22 years of Arizona politics. It may be it hasn't been since the state went to one man, one vote in the 60s. We Haven't checked the 70s and I don't trust my memory real well. But yes it is highly unusual, I can remember when Joe Lane was speaker of the house. I can remember when John Mawhinney was majority leader of the senate. I cannot think of a time when the top dogs in each house have both been from rural areas.

>> Michael Grant: Congressional District One turned out to be a little closer than people expected. It makes you wonder if the Democratic National Committee made the right call. They went back and forth on that race for a long time. Ultimately, gave it pretty half-hearted effort.

>> Keven Willey: All along, George CORDOVA was so vastly underestimated. Nobody expected him to win the primary. Everybody was focused on the big names, being Udall and DUVAL, and nobody looked beneath that. Here was this guy Cordova, very personable, very much individual grassroots, beneath the radar screen and out of the blue not only did Udall not win and Duval did not win, but George took over the nomination. The same thing happened in the general election. And so people didn't, I think the National Democratic Party looked at this race by conventional standard and thought Renzi will probably walk away with it, so let's pull out the resources and spend them in another state. It makes you wonder if they had stayed in the state, because it was much closer than expected, I think it's largely attributable to the fact that George Cordova does not run a traditional campaign. It pays off almost.

>> Michael Grant: Turning our attention to the 15 ballot propositions. A record amount of money spent this election cycle, almost $40 million alone on the three gaming initiatives. Prop 200 sponsored by the Colorado River Indian tribes and 201 backed by the race tracks lost by wide margins. The 17-tribe initiative, prop 202 has a slight lead. Voters rejected prop 203 which decriminalized marijuana possession and set up a pot distribution network. Voters did pass prop 302 which allows judges to crack down on drug users who refuse or fail to complete substance abuse programs. Here's a look at the fate of the rest of the propositions.

>> Michael Grant: Before we talk about the ballot proposition results, Paul Atkinson looks at the effect advertising had on the outcome.

>> Paul Atkinson: The good news for voters and TV viewers is they no longer have to put up with annoying campaign ads. For months, Arizonans were bombarded with an endless stream of commercials. They went from educating people about a particular gaming proposition to slamming a competing initiative. The ads took their toll on Roger and Miriam of Phoenix who voted no on all three.

>> Roger Chesley: the propositions created some distrust and confusion on what they were representing.

>> Miriam Chesley: Everybody is going in saying this is bad, this is great. They all sounded like, what do I do? I just went with a no vote on all. Probably what they were fearful of.

>> Paul Atkinson: The backers of proposition 202 were worried coming into the election. Because of the negative campaigning, that people would vote no on all three gaming initiatives. And the backers of Proposition 203, the proposition on the ballot directly following the three gaming initiatives, they were fearful voting no would continue on their proposition, as well. We were detecting in our own tracking polls that people were getting very very turned off in the gamin adds and they were getting inundated and We felt they were getting into a no mood, we were afraid of being collateral damage right after 202, people get in the mood to vote no on everything, we could get some of that, as well.

>> Paul Atkinson: Or maybe not.

>> Freddie Williams: My thought is there was a great deal of negativity, definitely clouded the issues. I think that was done intentionally, to try to get you off what is important to the state. I did vote for one of the initiatives.

>> William Proctor: Actually the negative campaigns did not bother me. I read the propositions and I understood what was going after. And the 202 was the best one.

>> Delia Caryle: I'm very proud of the tribes. Not because I'm part of the initiative itself, but it was really, we'll call it a moral victory. I believe the tribes did their best in the way of being dignified with this whole campaign.

>> Paul Atkinson: Prop 201 spokesperson thinks the success of Prop 202 and failure of 201 and 200 came down to something he had been talking about all along. Money.

>> Nick Tarr: This has been difficult, trying to educate the public about the benefits of 201, how it will not harm Indian gaming. $20 million of advertising slammed into the public. It confuses people.

>> Paul Atkinson: Confusion was apparently not the case with prop 203 which would have decriminalized marijuana and have the DPS distribute confiscated pot.

>> Donna Neill: This was built on lies and fabrication, asking us as a community to have our law enforcement that protects us do something that was unthinkable. Once we were able to get our information out and really tell what this bill was, folks knew what they were doing. They understand. If you let people know exactly what things are, they'll make good choices every time.

>> Michael: If I had spent close to $20 million on two propositions as the backers of 200 and 201 did, and lost four to one and five to one, I think I would want to open a wrist at this point in time.

>> Keven Willey: You've got to think it would make the next potential employers think twice to hiring them.

>> Michael Grant: We have been talking about the votes remaining, 202 enjoys a narrow margin but if I recall, it's in the 40, 45,000 vote vicinity.

>> Keven Willey: They have a slightly larger margin that Janet Napolitano had over Matt salmon. The no votes, the best way to think about this is in the Napolitano-Salmon race, Napolitano got 82 votes for every 100 that Matt Salmon got. Proposition 202 got 86 votes to every 100. Slightly better. Michael: The expectation -

>> Keven Willey: The no votes outweighed the yes votes.

>> Michael: It's how much ground covered and how much ground you have left.

>> Keven Willey: I think most expectations are that the margin may narrow but the proposition will pass.

>> Michael: We had talked a number of times during the campaign season about what impact these three propositions could have on a lot of other races. A lot of warnings early on, for Republicans in particular it would be a bad idea to have the gaming propositions go to the ballot because of that phenomena. Did Janet Napolitano perhaps in the end get elected by the presence of these three gaming propositions on the ballot?

>> Keven Willey: I think 202's presence did help her. There's a way to think about it, but in a way perhaps Janet Napolitano owes the state party chairman a debt of gratitude. Perhaps he helped inadvertently. State party chairman, one of his largest clients are the racetracks. They fought very hard against what was sort of 202 in the legislature. And they succeeded. By killing it in the legislature, that drove it to the streets in a ballot proposition. The theory being when it went to the streets, that laid the groundwork for the registration of some 50,000 additional voters prone to vote in favor of 202. She is the only gubernatorial candidate to declare her support of 202. You have to wonder if the chairman of the Republican party, because of his client and the strategy associated there, helped elect the first democratic governor in two decades in Arizona.

>> Michael: On that ironic note, we close 24 hours of campaign coverage. Kevin Willey, thank you very much.

>> Michael: To review the debates and election-related stories aired on this program, go to www.kaet.asu.edu. Click election 2002. And on "Horizon"'s website we also have transcripts and a schedule of upcoming programs.

>>> Tomorrow "Horizon" is preempted for a special program. Distinguished academics including presidents and provosts from universities across the country will join A.S.U. President Michael M. Crow in the KAET studio. And on Friday, we'll be back with the journalists roundtable edition of "Horizon" and a variety of viewpoints about the election results. Thanks for joining us on this Wednesday. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.