Technical error leads website to publish wrong Arizona Senate results

PHOENIX — Internet-based BuzzFeed News jumped the gun on Election Day, publishing incorrect results from Arizona’s hotly contested Senate race between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema in the early hours of Tuesday.

The article listed the Democrat Sinema up 261,153 votes to Republican McSally’s 169,321 with 83 precincts of the nearly 1,500 precincts reporting, citing Decision Desk HQ, an election returns site.

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office told KTAR News 92.3 FM that information was wrong.

Drew McCoy, a spokesman for Decision Desk HQ said in an email they didn’t have any results yet and that, “My guess is they accidentally have test data appearing.”

Katherine Miller, BuzzFeed News political editor concurred that it was a technical error.

“We’re fixing it right now, thanks for letting us know,” she said in an email.

Nearly 1.6 million early ballots have been turned in from Arizona voters.

In Maricopa County, 977,000 early ballots were turned in. Of those, 413,000 were from Republicans, 319,000 were from Democrats and 263,000 were from independents.

Garrett Archer, an analyst with the Secretary of State’s Office, said in the city of Phoenix, returned ballots favored Democrats at 40.6 percent, Republicans 34.5 percent and others were at 24.9 percent.

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