In a sweeping reversal, the Tucson City Council responded Tuesday to community concerns about the municipality’s decision not to seek a recount for Proposition 413 — the pay raise measure that was passing by a slim 289 votes.

The initial decision not to pursue a recount came after Tucson City Attorney Mike Rankin reviewed the election results and the question of a recount, city spokesperson Andy Squire told Arizona Luminaria in an email Monday.

On Tuesday, at a special meeting to canvass the election results, Rankin retreated from that advice and instead chose to recommend that the council ask Arizona’s attorney general and secretary of state for direction on whether a recount is needed for Proposition 413. The council agreed with the new recommendation and paved the way to seek a court opinion on whether the local ballot measure is subject to a recount under state laws.

Rankin stressed that his original legal advice to nix a recount stands.

However, the state’s top Legislative Council official told Arizona Luminaria that local ballot measures are likely subject to state recount laws.

Council member Steve Kozachik said building trust in voting and elections in Arizona is a critical civic reason to seek consult from a court judge to decide how Tucson moves forward. His comments highlighted how people across Arizona and the nation are seeking to separate misinformation from truth in the U.S. voting systems.

“We’re living in a time right now where elections all over the country are under a new level of scrutiny and I think that we should do everything in our power to assure that there’s no doubting the sanctity of the 413 results,” Kozachik said.

Initially, Tucson issued a statement late Friday that no recount was necessary for Proposition 413, despite the measure entering recount margins under a new law. As a public backlash mounted, the city reversed course.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Rankin requested authorization from the mayor and council to notify state officials of the narrow margin by which Proposition 413 passed.

“That will give the secretary of state, with the assistance of the attorney general, an opportunity to weigh in on it,” Rankin said.

Rankin also wanted to inform the state of his legal position that the Arizona recount provisions do not apply to the Tucson proposition. He intends to deliver a letter to the secretary of state and attorney general on Nov. 22, and depending on their response, the city will decide whether to file a court petition for a recount the following week.

Michael Braun, executive director of the Arizona Legislative Council, which must review every law passed by the Legislature, disagreed with Tucson’s interpretation of the law on recounts.

Braun told Arizona Luminaria on Monday that Article 12 – the part of the state law outlining recounts – does pertain to local ballot measures. Evaluating state election statutes as a whole is vital to understanding why, he said.

“To me, when you put it all together, Article 12 does have applicability to recounts for city ballot measures,” Braun said in an interview.

The legislative council is a nonpartisan state statutory committee. Its responsibilities include preparing all legislative bills, reviewing laws and performing legal research at the request of Arizona legislators.

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The council voted unanimously Tuesday to canvass the returns and declare the results of the city’s Nov. 7 general election results, which included a ballot measure – Proposition 413 – and council and mayoral races.

In his original arguments, Rankin had made the case that recount laws related to local elections only apply to candidates for races, not referred ballot measures. And provisions in state statutes relating to non-candidate measures, like Proposition 413, only apply to statewide general elections.

City ballot measures are not excluded in the subsection of recount laws that lists elections exempt from an automatic recount such as school district governing boards. 

Braun, Arizona’s top Legislative Council official, also asserts that special elections and special measures do not fall under the exempt category.

An Arizona bill signed in May of 2022 lowered the threshold for automatically triggering recounts. If that law had not been changed, Proposition 413 would not be close enough to fall into recount territory. Historically, recounts rarely change election results.

About the 289 votes separating mayor, council from pay boost

The city’s statement late Friday surprised many voters who thought the ballot measure was headed for a recount under a new state law that narrowed the margin that triggers another vote count.

Proposition 413 “was approved by the voters and the result does not require a recount” because the state law does not apply to “a local referred ballot measure that was called as a special election and administered as a special election,” Tucson’s Friday news release stated.

The ballot measure showed passing by only 289 votes out of 94,041 total, or about 0.3%, of total votes cast, which falls well within the state mandate for a recount for certain elections when the vote margin is less than or equal to one-half of one percent, or 0.5%, according the official tally.

Data presented at Tuesday’s meeting shows 47,165 voters in favor of the proposition and 46,876 in opposition, leaving the trigger margin for a recount at 470 votes.

At Tuesday meeting, Mayor Regina Romero emphasized she had confidence in the election’s results.

“Either way, I want to make sure that our election system in Pima County has the full faith of the community, as well as mine and my colleagues on the council,” she said. 

Still, she feared that the election would be weaponized to question the election’s integrity. “I am concerned that some will use this particular margin of win – the 289 votes – as something of an excuse to deny the election,” she said.

That trepidation is not baseless in a state at the national center of unfounded conspiracies about election results and procedures.

Other council members also were in favor of seeking a second opinion from the secretary of state and attorney general to instill confidence in voters that their locally-elected officials are doing everything in their power to ensure a fair election.

“I think again, going to the court and going, ‘Hey, do you need us to recount here because we’re happy to do it,’ is the best way to go,” council member Paul Cunningham said.

The motion the council approved on Tuesday included confirming and certifying that the vote margin for Proposition 413 is less than one-half of one percent, or 0.5%, of the total number of votes cast for the measure – also the state mandated trigger in certain elections for automatic recounts.

The council authorized a path to filing legal action with the courts to determine whether a recount must be conducted for the local ballot measure or if Arizona recount laws do not apply.

Arizona law requires city or town councils to certify that a recount is necessary, filing a petition with a superior court judge in the county where the election canvass, or official tally, was conducted. The judge must then “enter an order requiring a recount of the votes cast for such office, measure or proposal.”

Arizona’s new 0.5% recount trigger margin took effect following a 2022 Republican-sponsored bill that was part of the GOP’s efforts to change state election laws after President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump amid unfounded calls of fraud.

Under the state’s previous law, the 0.1% difference to trigger a recount of Proposition 413 would have been 94 votes, however, the 10-vote margin threshold would have been the lesser number. That means Proposition 413 would have fallen outside of recount territory, given that it is passing by 289 votes.

Voters in Tucson are ultimately deciding whether to significantly increase the mayor and city council member’s salaries, to be tied to those of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

Proposition 413 also would give Tucson’s mayor and council members a higher salary than their Phoenix counterparts. The Phoenix mayor makes a salary of $88,000 per year and council members take in $61,600 per year, according to Dan Wilson, the city’s communications director.

Proposition 413 would raise the mayor’s annual salary from $42,000 to $95,750, setting the increase at 1.25 times what officials serving on the Pima County Board of Supervisors earn as mandated by state law. City council members would see an increase from $24,000 to $76,600.

The measure would automatically adjust the mayor and city council members’ salaries to conform with any future changes to state-mandated salaries for county supervisors. Tucson council members’ salaries would match the salaries for supervisors, while the mayor’s salary would increase at 1.25 times the adjusted rate, according to official ballot language.

Under Arizona statutes, county supervisors are expected to see a raise in 2025 to $96,600. That would mean a further increase in the Tucson mayor’s salary to $120,750 and council members’ salaries to $96,600.

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Carolina Cuellar is a bilingual journalist based in Tucson covering South Arizona. Previously she reported on border and immigration issues in the Rio Grande Valley for Texas Public Radio. She has an M.S....