It is taking a bit of time to understand the upcoming election.
Several races are proving to be close.
Voters had some messages to convey.
As the smoke clears, here is what Arizona Republic opinion writers think.
In many of the top-of-the-ballot races, Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election were not an issue.
The results have been different. It was rolled out.
Appointed Republican County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, who declared victory on Monday, led by roughly the same margin, even as margins in other offices either widened or narrowed.
Mitchell was elected by voters because they didn't like the idea of changing the office by focusing on reducing the number of people sent to prison.
It seems that abortion access didn't factor much, as Mitchell said she wouldn't go after women who get abortions.
The deputy editor is Abe Kwok.
When this is over, we need to change our election system because there was no conspiracy to rig the printers or count votes.
30% of the voting centers in the county were affected by the malfunction with printers that took some 7 hours to fix.
Republican voters are furious even if that has no effect. The breakdown put a torch on the nerves as they always are on Election Day. We are looking at a potential crisis because of the foolish declaration that she has already won.
She will lose and her voters will be angry.
Republicans who run elections in the county wouldn't try to undermine their own voters. The affected were voters who didn't trust the election system and went to the polls.
The log jam is likely to be found when the election is over and the managers do a postmortem.
That doesn't really matter.
The system is not fast enough to increase distrust. People are asking what is wrong with the county.
States have built election systems that are fast. We are able as well.
Phil has a column.
There are many things that suffer from the proposition. Raising revenue is not one of them.
The measure, which calls for a state sales tax of one tenth of a percent with the money to be distributed to fire districts across Arizona, is failing at the moment.
Local governments don't have enough money to support the fire districts. Arizonans travel and vacation in many of these remote spots and rely on services when there are emergencies.
It is questionable if it is a good idea to impose a sales tax for 20 years on all Arizonans.
A series of arrests and prosecutions of fire- district personnel who misspent and stole money in opposing the measure was highlighted by Scot Mussi.
It is difficult to say which argument was more popular with voters in the county.
The deputy editor is Abe Kwok.
The overwhelming support for Dreamers was a lie.
That didn't happen.
You would think these people would make it easier for them to get a college degree.
It's not quite right.
Despite polling before the election that it would sail through, the proposition that would give "Dreamers" the chance to pay in-state college tuition appears to have barely squeaked by.
The margin of victory didn't matter to me. These young immigrants want this proposition to pass.
The fact that almost half of voters turned their backs on them tells a bigger story.
It doesn't bode well for immigrants who are still trying to get Americans to allow them to stay in the country.
Elvia Daz is an editor.
The balance of power in the Senate won't be affected by whoever wins the District 22 Senate race.
Whoever wins will be chosen by a small group of voters.
Diego Espinoza is a democrat. He took a job at the Salt River Project after dropping out of the race.
Five Democrats, three Republicans and an independent ran in his place. There was only one name on the ballots.
The message was that if you vote for Espinoza, your vote won't count. One of the nine must be written in correctly.
Out of more than 43,000 votes cast there are 31,308 undervotes. Most voters either didn't vote or didn't vote at all.
Eva Diaz received just 5,750 votes in her write-in.
Digital opinions editor.
We should declare victory before the contest ends.
The race for public school's top job is too close to call. Kathy is the leader.
He declared himself the winner on Wednesday.
Is this the behavior we want from the person in charge of public schools?
When do we flip-flops on when to stick to an objective strategy?
After it became apparent that he was going to lose the attorney general primary, Horne refused to concede.
Why is it okay for you to call yourself a winner before the game is over? It's not consistent at all. It's fair to call it dishonest.
Is this behavior we want to teach children?
Greg Moore writes a column.
Most other states will have a lieutenant governor in 2027 if the current voting trend continues. The first two person gubernatorial ticket would be on the ballot.
You might say that is just one more layer we don't need, but that's not true. The solution to the criticism is to have the second-in-command take over an existing position.
It seems that it is embraced across party lines.
The Legislature referred the proposition to it's author. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan group that supports left-wing causes.
What's the reason? The person next in line to ascend to the position would be from the same party.
You can argue that keeping things the same would be a good deterrent. Neither major party nor voters agreed.
The deputy editor is Abe Kwok.
One of the candidates for the Arizona Senate appears to be heading to the showers.
Eva Burch is a nurse and she has a six point lead over Robert Scantlebury.
The only legislative district that leans Democratic is the Mesa district.
It would be a pickup for Democrats if it held. Scantlebury defeated the more moderate Republican in the primary.
He had to leave because he didn't want to honor Trump.
Self sabotage is discussed.
Laurie Roberts writes a column.
The critics agree that the so-called Predatory Debt Collection Protection Act is misleading.
It turned out to be very clever.
The measure, which won a strong majority of Arizona voters' support, was sold as a solution to medical debts, even though it's much broader than that. The amount of a home and vehicles that are exempt from debt collection is raised.
It restricts the ability of the lender to collect on non medical debts.
Critics predict that passage will lead to higher borrowing costs for consumers, especially for the lower income group that is intended to benefit from the measure.
Business types argue that if the costs are passed along to everyone else, the losses will be less.
It is not known if that is campaign rhetoric or an actual consequence of the law.
The deputy editor is Abe Kwok.
Mark Kelly is the best at proving that character and human quality are important.
The Democrat defeated the Republican by 5 percentage points.
Kelly is good at tricking people into voting for him. He is a person of substance who can look anyone in the eye and say what he is going to do.
Today, the only thing that matters in politics is personal fame and the enrichment that comes from it.
Many Arizonans seem to have seen past political affiliations and voted based on what was best for the country.
Democrats needed Kelly to win in order to retain control of the Senate. Kelly will win it because of his personal and political attributes and not because he is a democrat.
Elvia Daz is an editor.
Voters were cool with who was already doing the job, so it's hard to draw conclusions from the election results.
The two incumbents got the most votes.
It's difficult to discern what voters were thinking beyond that. Two of the four Republican candidates who were recruited by outgoing incumbent Mark Lewis were chosen by them.
Was this just a partisan issue? I don't know. You would think each candidate on the GOP slate would have gotten the same number of votes.
Is name recognition the only reason for it? Who was the campaign's hardest to win? It's difficult to tell. Seago didn't answer any questions about her candidacy. She is not well known. Even though the homebuilders ran ads for them, Lisa Bullington,Shelby Duplessis andCory Mishkin were the lowest vote-getting candidates.
It's hard to discern clear trends when the vote is split among many candidates, so I'm not so sure what this says. It's clear that this is going to be a rough ride for the winners, given how little water will soon be flowing through the canals.
Put your hands together.
Digital opinions editor.
It will be interesting to see how many undervotes there were in key races.
I think there may be enough people who wouldn't vote for either candidate because they didn't want to change the result.
Digital opinions editor.
The down-ballot race in southeastern Arizona has statewide ramifications.
There are two Active Management Areas in Cochise County, one for the Willcox basin and the other for the Douglas basin.
The Sulphur Springs Valley is made up of both. In the Willcox basin, there are more problems with over-pumping than in the Douglas basin.
In Willcox, theAMA failed resoundingly while theAMA in Douglas passed easily.
There will be a tale of two cities in the valley as one adopts management goals and the other doesn't.
Expect a lot of murmuring and celebrations in other rural areas about what this means for them and who might try it next.
Digital opinions editor.
Ken Bennett is going back to the Arizona Senate. He had a high point in his political career when he was a senator. He was revered by both Republicans and Democrats back then.
Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God." Bennett was one of the people who brought calm to the chaotic situation.
He used Kleenex boxes to simplify the state budget. He wants to tackle pension reform in his wheelhouse.
Bennett surprised everyone with some detours into the Obama "birther" conspiracy and some eccentric right-wing politics that led him to the Arizona audit and election denialism.
The old Ken Bennett reminded people that we can disagree, but still treat each other with kindness. It's perfect if we get the Bennett. The last decade has seen a lot of smash-mouth politics.
It would be too much for him to bring his guitar back to West Washington Street and reprise the song.
Phil has a column.
There is a chance that Carlos Garcia will go to a second round. The anti- police activist leads the newcomer by a small margin.
He took the City Council by storm with his distrust of the police.
The police accountability office was established despite resistance from fellow council members. His tendency to defund the police could be hurting him now.
Phoenix is Arizona's capitol and a liberal bastion, yet the mayor has moved more to the center, snubbing liberals.
Elvia Daz is an editor.
Voters in the county didn't like judges getting a few strikes against them.
They will have ousted three Superior Court judges if the results hold.
Arizona voters have not retained a judge before. Eight years have passed since it happened. It is the first time that voters may boot three people, only one of which did not meet the standards.
The other two weren't universally accepted. The two commission votes against Crandell were against him. All three got low marks in temperament, especially patience and a lack of compassion, based on information in public reports.
Some people don't like the review system because it only scratches the surface on questionable rulings. Voters took its reviews very seriously when they voted.
The commission gave the same number of dents to the state Supreme Court justice. Voters statewide are on track to keep him, even though he is less popular than his Supreme Court colleagues.
Don't make of that what you will.
Digital opinions editor.
The Arizona election analysis was originally published on the Arizona Republic.
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