(Photo courtesy of Arizona Secretary of State)

Arizona Special Election Guide.

The Arizona Secretary of State's office says there's no authority to cancel next week's election despite a foul-up over sending publicity pamphlets to voters.

Attorney Tom Ryan filed a formal complaint this week asking Attorney General Mark Brnovich to void the May 17 vote. Ryan said Arizona law required the pamphlets describing Propositions 123 and 124 and giving pro and con arguments be sent out by April 10.

"That did not happen for substantial numbers of voters," Ryan said. "And by our estimate could be as many as 400,000 voters that did not get this in a timely fashion."

Ryan said Arizona law requires strict compliance with all election procedures. No compliance = no election. But Matt Roberts, spokesman for Secretary of State Michele Reagan, said his boss doesn't see it that way, even though he admited her office should have found the problem.

"There's nothing in statute that we're finding that would allow this office to not allow the election itself to move forward," he said.

Roberts said he thinks the law requiring strict compliance with election laws only applies when voters refer measures to the ballot, not when it's done by the legislature.

"This might be being misapplied in this particular instance. But that does not do anything to excuse the fact that we did not send out 200,000 of the publicity pamphets," he said.

There was no immediate response from Brnovich.