A Phoenix-area state House race has come down to just 311 votes, and under Arizona law that margin is tight enough to trigger an automatic recount. Maricopa County election officials said Legislative District 27 appears headed for that recount after final unofficial results released Wednesday, November 11, 2026, showed Republican incumbent Lisa Fink edging fellow Republican incumbent Tony Rivero for the district's second House seat.
According to FOX 10 Phoenix, the final unofficial tally gave Fink 33,724 votes to Rivero's 33,413 — a gap of 311 votes. Democrat Deborah Howard led the vote-for-two contest with 40,161 votes and has claimed one of the district's two House seats, while Fink and Rivero are locked in a fight for the second. The elections department noted that Fink and Rivero are within half a percentage point of each other for second and third place, the threshold that puts the race on track for a court-ordered recount.
District 27 spans suburban neighborhoods across Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria, and both Fink and Rivero are incumbent Republicans who currently hold the district's two seats in the state House. That means the recount will decide whether Rivero keeps his seat or Fink wins the district's final House seat alongside Howard — though for now, the outcome hinges on vote totals that are still unofficial.
Why the Numbers Aren't Final Yet
The reported totals remain unofficial until the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors canvasses them, the elections department said. That board is scheduled to meet on Nov. 18 to canvass the results, a required step before any recount can proceed. Per the Maricopa County Elections page on automatic recounts, both the county board of supervisors and the Arizona Secretary of State must canvass the results before a recount can officially begin in a federal, state or legislative contest.
It's worth noting that an earlier county summary-report snapshot, dated Nov. 5, had listed different totals for all three candidates — Howard at 38,138 votes, Fink at 32,220 and Rivero at 31,880, according to a report posted on elections.maricopa.gov. That earlier snapshot and the later final unofficial totals shouldn't be treated as interchangeable counts of the same tally; what's clear is that the race has stayed close enough, across reporting updates, to land in automatic-recount territory.
What Arizona Law Requires
Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 16-661, a recount is required when the specified margin between candidates falls at or below one-half of one percent — the same threshold the elections department cited in describing the Fink-Rivero gap. Maricopa County officials said the race requires a court-ordered recount, and that the process cannot begin until both the county board of supervisors and the Secretary of State canvass the results.
County officials reported that 99% of results had been posted by Nov. 6, a sign of how far the count had progressed even as the margin in District 27 stayed within recount range. The county is also set to run a post-election logic and accuracy test on Nov. 13 at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, intended to verify that vote-counting machines functioned properly.
A Busy Election Day Behind the Numbers
The district's outcome was shaped by a high-turnout Election Day across the county. Maricopa County staffed 254 vote centers and had more than 4,000 poll workers on duty, while 208,658 people voted in person and voters dropped off 49,245 mail-in ballots for tabulation that same day.
Automatic recounts aren't new territory for Maricopa County. After the 2024 general election, the county counted 2,078,460 two-page ballots over 10 days amid turnout of 80%, above the county's presidential-year average of 77%, Arizona Mirror reported. That year, three county races — a Board of Supervisors seat, a different legislative district's House race, and a Fountain Hills Town Council contest — also headed to automatic recounts after the board of supervisors certified results on a Thursday afternoon, clearing the way for recounts to begin. Prior election cycles don't predict how this year's District 27 recount will unfold, but they show the county has run this process before.
For now, the District 27 contest sits in limbo: the final unofficial 311-vote gap stands, the canvass is set for Nov. 18, and the recount itself cannot start until both the county and the Secretary of State sign off on the results.
