Arizona county officials sued for not voting

Left: Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) speaks to reporters at a news conference Aug. 2, 2022 (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images). Right: Kari Lake (R) exits a polling station after voting in the Arizona primary on Aug. 2, 2022 (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images).

Election officials in Cochise County, Arizona, disagreed canvas the results of the 2022 midterm elections – and were promptly sued twice on Tuesday.

Secretary of State of Arizona Katie Hobbs (D), who is now the governor-elect of Grand Canyon State, filed one of the lawsuits.

“Without the intervention of this court, the Secretary of State will have no choice but to complete the statewide vote by December 8 without including Cochise County’s votes,” she said Complaint Conditions. “Therefore, the board’s inaction not only violates the plain language of the law, but also undermines a principle of free and fair elections in this state that results in every Arizonan’s voice being heard.”

One of the top Democratic Party law firms also filed a request for a mandamus injunction, a form of emergency assistance that would force election officials to do their duty. They represent the Cochise County constituents Stephanie Stephenson and the nonprofit group Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, the same group that previously sued to prevent armed “vigilantes” from intimidating voters at mailboxes.

“The committee’s decision was unjustifiable based on completely unsubstantiated, vague claims that the county’s electronic voting machines could not be trusted,” their 12-page petition said. “But collecting election results by a specific date is the board’s mandatory statutory duty under Arizona law, and the board has no discretion to refuse to do so.”

The results of the 2022 midterm elections were widely seen as a defeat for the pro-donald trump Contestants running on a platform to deny the results of the previous race. Among the losing candidates was Kari Lake (R), who has hinted before Election Day that she may not give up if she loses. Hobbs, who faced death threats for defending the 2020 election results, narrowly defeated Lake in her race for governor.

Now officials from Lake’s party have tried to shake the results by refusing to conduct a poll, a procedure that allows them to confirm the accuracy of the data. Two of the Republican County Board members, Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom CrosbyHe wanted to count the ballots by hand Experts | find this process more time-consuming and less reliable than machine counting. These officials are named individually in both lawsuits, as is the board of directors. Hobbs also sued the county.

“Unfortunately, the majority of the board has caved into these untruths, resulting in a series of decisions that have threatened the voting rights of first Cochise County voters and now all Arizona residents,” the petition reads.

In late October, the Republican-dominated board of directors authorized a full hand count of ballots, only to thwart their designs in court when a judge ruled that a 100 percent hand count was not consistent with Arizona law.

As the petition notes, a majority of Cochise County’s board of directors rejected that ruling and refused to hold a poll until 99.9 percent of the ballots had been hand-counted — though a limited hand count found “no discrepancy” with the machine-counted totals .

The district’s challengers called the committee’s actions “lawless” and threatened to despise them.

Tuesday was Cochise County’s deadline to run its silver screen.

The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans is represented by two law firms, including one founded by the Democratic Party’s electoral attorney Mark Elias. In 2020, Elias assisted local authorities across the country in shutting down more than 60 lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies that attempted to undermine the former president’s defeat.

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