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Pima County Superior Court Judge Wayne Yehling ruled Monday against Shaw’s requests to throw out the results of the Aug. 5 primary election, re-do the primary, and pause the printing of the Nov. 5 general election ballots until the challenge was resolved.

A re-do of the primary election would cost “at least $350,000,” Tucson City Clerk Suzanne Mesich said Monday in court. And under state statute, if another primary election had to happen, it likely wouldn’t until March 2026, delaying the general election for Ward 3 to May next year, she said.

Shaw, a Tucson Unified School District Governing Board member, argued that a ballot mishap that occurred ahead of the primary election disenfranchised 76 “potential voters” in Tucson’s Ward 3.

In late July, the Pima County Recorder’s Office said it sent nearly 1,300 Tucson voters a ballot for the wrong political party ahead of the Aug. 5 primary election. The office later said the ballot mistake, caused by the office sending incorrect voter data to the Tucson City Clerk’s Office ahead of ballots being printed, actually affected 358 voters.

Ward 3’s Democratic primary was the closest race among the primary races held earlier this month for three seats on the Tucson City Council.

Shaw lost by just 19 votes to Dahl, who is seeking his second term on the City Council.

Dahl’s slim margin of victory triggered an automatic recount. The recount was originally scheduled for last week, but it was postponed until Shaw’s challenge was resolved.

After the hearing, Mesich said her hope is to have the recount begin Wednesday, but it will first have to be signed off by the judge who originally vacated the recount’s court hearing.

Jim Barton, a lawyer for Shaw, argued Monday that, of those 76 voters, 18 were registered Democrats who received a ballot for a different party, while the remaining 58 voters were independents who received Democratic ballots by mistake.

Barton argued that it was too much to ask voters to “understand the communications” they received from the Recorder’s Office, disregard the ballot they received, and request a new ballot in time for the election, or, go to a vote center in-person on Election Day to vote a replacement ballot.

Assistant City Attorney Dennis McLaughlin, representing the City Attorney’s Office, argued that those voters were given the opportunity to exercise their right but didn’t take it. He said the City Clerk’s Office and the Recorder’s Office acknowledged the mistake was made, but it was on the voters to take the initiative, but “they simply chose not to vote.”

Dahl declined to comment Monday night.

Shaw, in a statement, said that while she was disappointed in the outcome, “I am even more concerned by what we uncovered in this process — serious problems that we were not allowed to present in court.”

“The 1,294 voters listed in the supplemental file sent by the Pima County Recorder’s Office to the City of Tucson were all affected, not just the 358 ... while a City employee also casually acknowledged it in testimony, we were not allowed to focus on it during the case. Because of Arizona’s extremely narrow statute of limitations on election contests, we were unable to amend our complaint to include this information,” Shaw said. “While I respect the court’s role, I want to be clear: hundreds of Tucsonans were absolutely disenfranchised.”

Shaw said she doesn’t regret filing the election challenge and will not be appealing the court’s decision, “but I will continue to demand accountability and to advocate for a system where every Tucsonan can have full confidence that their vote will be counted.”