Arizona Secretary of State admits to having named the wrong Green Party winner in the US Senate primary

The US Secretary of State’s office says it mistakenly declared the wrong winner in the Green Party’s primary for the US Senate.

The candidate who failed to win the election, Eduardo Quintana, received 282 votes, more than any other candidate, but the ballot signed by Foreign Minister Adrian Fontes on Thursday declared Mike Norton the winner.

Norton, whose name was on the ballot, received 180 votes. Arturo Hernandez, a third candidate in the race, received 106 votes.

When contacted by KJZZ News, the Secretary of State’s office said the error would be corrected.

“We are correcting the vote count to reflect this result,” said Aaron Thacker, a spokesman for the Secretary of State.

Quintana said he was alarmed when the Secretary of State’s office did not declare him the winner just days after counties began counting the results of the July primary election.

What caused the problem is still unclear, but Thacker said the secretary of state plans to issue a statement on the mix-up.

Cody Hannah, chairman of the Arizona Green Party, said he contacted the secretary of state’s office this morning after vote counts showed Norton had won the race, even though Quintana had received more votes.

Hannah said he believes the error was due to a misapplication of a state law that governs how candidates who were registered as new candidates in the primary election can qualify for the general election.

The law states that candidates of a party who are “qualified for continued representation on the official ballot” must receive at least as many votes as they need to qualify for the primary election.

To qualify for the Green Party’s primary, U.S. Senate candidates had to collect at least 1,288 signatures. That’s significantly more votes than Quintana received.

But according to the State Department website, only the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties have qualified for continued statewide representation.

Cody said the Arizona Green Party, which only received state recognition in December, is not yet qualified for additional representation on the ballot. That means a different part of the law applies to the Green Party’s primary, which requires a candidate on the ballot only to receive the most votes to win.

Quintana said the confusion threatened to undermine voters’ confidence in the election.

“We should be able to run for office if we disagree with certain political views. The public compares our opinions and decides who to vote for. We are elected democratically,” Quintana said.

The Arizona Green Party has long claimed that Quintana, chairman of the Pima County Green Party, is the only candidate backed by the party running in the U.S. Senate primary, accusing Norton and fellow candidate Arturo Hernandez of being backed by both Democrats and Republicans.

Norton, whose campaign finance reports show he was backed by major Democratic donors, acknowledged he was recruited by Republicans and Democrats who feared Hernandez was a front in the race to support Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake in her victory over Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego in November.

Norton, who praised Quintana’s apparent victory last week, accused Hernandez of being a Republican puppet because his campaign hired a Republican lawyer and a campaign finance consultant with ties to Republican politics.

Hernandez, who has not filed campaign finance reports, did not respond to requests for comment.