BREAKING: A judge has ordered Cochise County to certify the results of the 2022 election.
The lawsuit was filed just hours after the southeastern Arizona county refused to certify results of the 2022 election. Officials have warned that the county has no legal rights to refuse a certification, and that such an act could lead to votes from that county being excluded from a final statewide canvass of election results. FOX 10's Marissa Sarbak reports.
The refusal to certify by the rural southeastern Arizona county comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results showing Democrats winning top races. Hobbs’ lawsuit asks the Cochise County Superior Court to order officials to certify by Thursday. Failing to certify would undermine the will of the county’s voters "and sow further confusion and doubt about the integrity of Arizona’s election system," lawyers for Hobbs wrote.
They blame Republican election officials in Maricopa County, the state’s largest, including metro Phoenix, for a problem with some ballot printers. Officials in Maricopa County said everyone had a chance to vote and all legal ballots were counted. Conspiracy theories surrounding this process surfaced in early 2021, focused on what appeared to be an outdated accreditation certificate for one of the companies that was posted online. Federal officials investigated and reported that an administrative error had resulted in the agency failing to reissue an updated certificate as the company remained in good standing and underwent audits in 2018 and in early 2021.
The court filing and one of the GOP supervisors in Cochise County said they did not want to interfere with the likely recount in the race for Arizona attorney general. Democrat Kris Mayes was leading Republican Abraham Hamadeh by well under the recount margin as of late Wednesday afternoon. Marra’s attorney, Christina Estes-Werther, said she expects a fast decision from the Pima County judge who is hearing the case.
"I think we’ve done all the damage or good — I’m not saying that was all damage, I think there was some good that came out of this," Judd said. "But we’ve done all that we can." After the ruling, Republican board member board Peggy Judd proposed an expansion of the hand count to as many as 99% of the Election Day ballots, although that proposal has now been slightly trimmed. The lawsuit filed by attorneys for Judd and the other GOP board member, Tom Crosby, said they hope to hand count four races on all ballots from 16 of the county’s 17 vote centers.
If the county misses the certification deadline, the Secretary of State’s office or a candidate could go to court and ask a judge to force the board to certify the results. The deadline is in state law, and election rules based on that law say county officials must certify and cannot change the results.
The moves come just days after a judge ruled that state law bars expanding the normal small hand-count audit of early ballots. He also ruled that a 100% hand-count of Election Day ballots is illegal because any expansion for precincts chosen for those reviews must be picked at random. Today's ruling from Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey F. McGinley came after a full-day hearing on Friday in which opponents spoke out against the proposal.
The lawsuit only challenged a full hand-count of an estimated 30,000 early ballots, but the ruling appears to block a full hand-count of both the early ballots and those cast on Election Day. 2022 Election: Cochise County still grappling with ballot counting controversy The elections director testified that she faces a potential felony if implementing the plan ends up violating the law.
Stevens said the Cochise County board of supervisors had voted on the plan and authorized him to conduct the count. McGinley said after a day-long hearing that the lawyers representing the county supervisors and Stevens on one side and Elections Director Lisa Marra and the retiree group on the other had provided so much information there was no way he would rule from the bench.
Attorneys for the retiree group Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans argued that the law does not allow a full hand-count of early ballots, although it does for those ballots cast in-person on Election Day. Stevens said his view was that a full hand-count needs no margin and that whatever that count turned out to be would be the one that was officially certified. That runs counter to what the board discussed when it decided to do a full hand-count as a test of the official machine count.
No firm decisions about how the hand-count will work was made during an emergency meeting that was held this afternoon. County officials also issued a letter to Hobbs, assuring her that statutes will not be violated. Hobbs' office has acknowledged that they have received the letter, adding that they will stay in contact with the county to ensure the process complies with the law. "Under Arizona law, counties hand count ballots from a percentage of voting locations to ensure initial results are accurate," she wrote.
Confusion over just what the board did during their meeting on Oct. 25 remain widespread a day later, with the action described by detractors and supporters alike as a full hand count.from the Secretary of State’s office said it had "serious concerns" about the board’s intentions "particularly considering the lack of any details" and "the fact that the election is just two weeks away.
"‘I don’t see -- I still don’t see this legal or illegal, by the way, as something that’s going to hurt our election process, because it is going to happen completely afterward. It's going to happen on her terms," said Judd. "I implore you not to attempt to order this separate hand-count," said McIntyre, who went on to say that such action would be unlawful and supervisors could be held personally liable in a civil action.
Judd, a Republican, said they are not changing election procedures for voters. She said the whole point is to restore public faith in the election system.
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