Arizona

Arizona: Finchem sanctioned over ‘baseless’ election suit | Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press

An Arizona judge has sanctioned former Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem and his attorney over a lawsuit challenging his loss in last year’s election, saying the suit “was groundless and not brought in good faith.” Finchem’s suit raised unsupported claims that his loss was marred by misconduct and demanded the results be set aside and the election redone. He’s refused to concede to Democrat Adrian Fontes, who took office in January. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian tossed out Finchem’s lawsuit in December. Fontes and then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now governor, asked her to sanction Finchem for requiring them to incur the hassle and expense of defending against a baseless lawsuit. Julian said in a ruling dated March 1 that Finchem must pay the reasonable lawyer fees incurred by the Fontes campaign and by the secretary of state’s office, which Fontes now leads. Those costs have not been determined. “Mr. Finchem and bad actors like him cannot be permitted to avoid accountability,” Fontes said in a statement. “He continues to grift off of his broken political agenda using fraudulent schemes that take advantage of Arizonans.” Full Article: Finchem sanctioned over 'baseless' Arizona election suit | AP News

Arizona’s top prosecutor kept private records that debunked election fraud | vonne Wingett Sanchez and Isaac Stanley-Becker/The Washington Post

Nearly a year after the 2020 election, Arizona’s then-attorney general, Mark Brnovich, launched an investigation into voting in the state’s largest county that quickly consumed more than 10,000 hours of his staff’s time. Investigators prepared a report in March 2022 stating that virtually all claims of error and malfeasance were unfounded, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post. Brnovich, a Republican, kept it private. In April, the attorney general — who was running in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat — released an “Interim Report” claiming that his office had discovered “serious vulnerabilities.” He left out edits from his own investigators refuting his assertions. His office then compiled an “Election Review Summary” in September that systematically refuted accusations of widespread fraud and made clear that none of the complaining parties — from state lawmakers to self-styled “election integrity” groups — had presented any evidence to support their claims. Brnovich left office last month without releasing the summary. Full Article: Arizona's top prosecutor kept private records that debunked election fraud - The Washington Post

Arizona Court of Appeals rejects Kari Lake’s election challenge | Brian Rokus and Jack Forrest/CNN

The Arizona Court of Appeals has rejected Kari Lake’s challenge to the result of the Arizona gubernatorial election after she appealed an earlier ruling from the superior court. Lake had requested a declaration from the court that she – and not her opponent, Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs who won the election by about 17,000 votes – was the actual winner of the election. “Her request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results,” the Court of Appeals decision stated. The appeal rejection marks the latest defeat for Lake, who has continually doubled down on her support for former President Donald Trump and false claims that he 2020 election was stolen, a central rallying call in her 2022 gubernatorial bid. Source: Arizona Court of Appeals rejects Kari Lake's election challenge | CNN Politics

Arizona: Cochise County Recorder David Stevens stands to get more power after pursuing illegal hand count | Jen Fifield/Votebeat Arizona

David Stevens had never supervised a ballot count. He didn’t know how he would count nearly 50,000 ballots by hand, who would help, or where he would find enough space to do it. But that didn’t dissuade him. Less than a month before the November election, Stevens, the Cochise County recorder, told the county supervisors he would be happy to try. Arizona GOP leaders had spent two years promoting unfounded claims about compromised vote-counting machines, and were scouring the state for a county that would willingly hand-count ballots. They found it in Cochise County, where Stevens grasped onto the idea, devised a plan, and stoked the sentiment starting to take hold locally. The Republican recorder propelled the proposal to illegally hand count all midterm election ballots, thrusting a rural Arizona county known for historic mining towns and natural beauty into months of chaos, court hearings, and national headlines. Cochise’s two Republican supervisors bore the brunt of the backlash — threatened with jail time and, even now, facing a citizen-led recall effort. But the initial effort would have hit an abrupt stop without Stevens, who mostly remained behind the scenes. Full Article: Cochise County Recorder David Stevens stands to get more power after pursuing illegal hand count - Votebeat Arizona - Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Arizona election ‘audit’ full of infighting, deceit, messages show | yan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

Thousands of new documents The Arizona Republic obtained from Cyber Ninjas, the obscure company state Senate Republicans hired to conduct a partisan "audit" of the 2020 election, show the endeavor was fraught with conflict and confusion. The contractors confided they didn't know Arizona election law when they were hired, struggled to pay bills and raise money, fought over what to report to the Senate, got deeply sidetracked by a film about their effort, and consistently were in touch with people who tried to concoct ways to keep former President Trump in office after his election loss. Among the most revealing details in the new documents are that the lead contractor reached out to people close to Trump to ask for money to conduct the supposedly objective "audit," and others involved communicated with the former president as well. The Republic and a left-leaning watchdog group called American Oversight sued the Senate and Cyber Ninjas for emails, texts and other communications from the project and have received batches of documents for more than a year. Doug Logan, the CEO at now-defunct Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, which former Senate President Karen Fann chose to direct the work, has continued to fight the release of all of his communications, which a judge said were subject to disclosure. But facing a $50,000-a-day fine imposed more than a year ago, he recently turned over thousands of texts and Signal messages.

Full Article: Arizona election 'audit' full of infighting, deceit, messages show

Arizona Republicans try again to force ‘impossible’ hand counts of elections and a return to precinct voting | Caitlin Sievers/AZ Mirror

Arizona Republicans have taken another step in their attempt to completely overhaul elections in the Grand Canyon State, with a proposed bill that would force hand counts in the state’s elections, a practice that elections experts say would be logistically impossible. The measure to ban votes from being counted with electronic tabulators — equipment used in every Arizona city and county, and in virtually every election office across the nation — stems from a demand from constituents requiring hand counts of election results because of their general mistrust of voting machines, said Rep. Cory McGarr, R-Marana. A false belief that electronic ballot tabulators are designed to change votes so Republican candidates lose has become increasingly popular since President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Believers in the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump began demanding hand counts following that election, and this isn’t the first time such a bill has been proposed in the Arizona legislature. Jen Marson, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of Counties, had a laundry list of questions for McGarr about his House Bill 2307, since it does not include any specifics about how the hand counts would work. McGarr said he didn’t have any suggestions for how to handle the hand count but was sure that the counties could “figure that out.” “This is impossible,” Marson told the committee. Full Article: Republicans try again to force 'impossible' hand counts of elections and a return to precinct voting

Arizona Court of Appeals rejects state GOP party effort to end early voting | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

Arizona's early voting system is constitutional, the state Court of Appeals has ruled, upholding a popular voting method used widely across the state. The ruling, issued Tuesday, is the second legal defeat on the issue for the Arizona Republican Party and its chair, Kelli Ward, who last year sued to eliminate early voting before the 2022 elections. The three-judge appeals court rejected the party's argument that mail-in voting violates the secrecy clause in the state Constitution, which requires that voters must have a way to conceal their choices on the ballot. The state's mail-in, or early voting, process does provide secrecy, the court found, "by requiring voters to ensure that they fill out their ballot in secret and seal the ballot in an envelope that does not disclose the voters' choices." Full Article: Arizona Court of Appeals: Early voting does not violate Constitution

Arizona: 500-vote gap in Pinal County general election count was due to ‘human error’ | Sasha Hupka/Arizona Republic

Three months after a disastrous primary, Pinal County seemed to pull off a smooth Election Day in November. But the county made errors in counting some ballots, officials said as a 500-vote discrepancy between certified election tallies and recounted results came to light on Thursday. "The purpose of a recount is to ensure accurate vote totals are put forth, as it is reasonable to expect some level of human error in a dynamic, high-stress, deadline intensive process involving counting hundreds of thousands of ballots," county officials said in a statement. "The recount process did what it was supposed to do — it identified a roughly 500 vote undercount in the Pinal County election attributable to human error." The county, which runs south and east of Maricopa County, is home to about 450,000 residents and has experienced rapid growth in recent years. About 140,000 voters cast ballots there in the November election. The issues don't change the results of two races — for state attorney general and state schools superintendent — that were recounted statewide because of tight margins. And numerous officials said they believe the recount results are accurate. Still, the newly counted ballots narrowed the lead of Attorney General-elect Kris Mayes, a Democrat, over Republican opponent Abe Hamadeh in one of the tightest races in Arizona history. Full Article: Pinal County: 500-vote gap in general election count was 'human error'

Arizona: Why Maricopa County’s ballot printers failed on Election Day | Jen Fifield/Votebeat Arizona

As Maricopa County investigates what exactly caused machines to reject thousands of voters’ ballots on Election Day, a Votebeat analysis of technical evidence found that local officials may have pushed the county’s ballot printers past their limits. The thickness of the ballot paper the county used, the need to print on both sides, and the high volume of in-person voting are all likely to have contributed to poor print quality on ballots, according to Votebeat’s review of printer specifications, turnout data, and interviews with eight ballot-printing and election technology experts. “It was a cascade of events, and once the first domino fell, they were setting the dominos back up while rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Genya Coulter, a senior election analyst and director of stakeholder relations for election technology and security nonprofit OSET Institute. The poor print quality caused machines to then reject thousands of ballots across the county, forcing voters to instead place their ballots in a secure box to be tallied later. Two technical experts closely familiar with the county’s equipment, who did not want to be named because they didn’t want to get ahead of the county’s public statements, said that the paper thickness was likely a major factor in why the toner — the powder laser and LED printers use to make images on paper — did not properly adhere to both sides of the paper. Full Article: Why Maricopa County’s ballot printers failed on Election Day - Votebeat Arizona - Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Arizona: Election in Cochise County is certified after judge’s order | Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Under a court order, officials in Republican-controlled Cochise County, Ariz., finally certified their local midterm elections results after they missed the state's legal deadline and put more than 47,000 people's votes at risk. Ruling from the bench at a court hearing on Thursday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley ordered the county's board of supervisors to meet and make the results official by 5 p.m. MT Thursday. Two members of the board — Ann English, a Democrat, and Peggy Judd, a Republican — then voted to certify, while the board's third member — Tom Crosby, a Republican — did not attend the court-ordered meeting. The court order came three days after the board's two Republicans voted Monday not to certify the results — despite finding no legitimate problems with the counts — turning a usually uneventful step in the election process into a closely watched controversy. The move prompted multiple lawsuits, including one by the state's secretary of state, who has been waiting for the county's results to proceed with the statewide certification that is legally required to take place next week. Full Article: Election in Arizona's Cochise County is certified after judge's order : NPR

Arizona county leaders end hand-count lawsuit, cite recount | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Two Republicans who control the board in a rural southeastern Arizona county on Wednesday told a judge they want to withdraw a lawsuit they had filed just two days prior that sought to force their own elections director to hand-count all the ballots cast in-person on Election Day. 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. The Legislature this year changed the state’s election recount law to greatly increase the threshold for mandatory recounts. It now requires a recount when the candidates are within .5% of each other. In the attorney general race, the trigger is about 12,500 votes. Supervisor Peggy Judd told The Associated Press that she agreed to withdraw the lawsuit against Elections Director Lisa Marra that she and Supervisor Tom Crosby filed on Monday because they did not want to disrupt the statewide recount. That will be triggered once the state accepts the election certifications from all 15 Arizona counties and the statewide vote-totals are accepted. Full Article: Arizona county leaders end hand-count lawsuit, cite recount - The Washington Post

Arizona precincts with voting problems were not overwhelmingly Republican | Lenny Bronner , Isaac Stanley-Becker and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

The voting locations that experienced problems on Election Day in Maricopa County, home to more than half of Arizona’s voters, do not skew overwhelmingly Republican, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The finding undercuts claims by some Republicans — most notably Kari Lake, the GOP nominee for governor, and former president Donald Trump — that GOP areas in the county were disproportionately affected by the problems, which involved a mishap with printers. Republicans nonetheless argue that their voters were more likely to be affected, given their tendency to vote on Election Day rather than mail in their ballots. The claims come as Lake continues to narrowly trail her rival, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and as the number of ballots remaining to be counted dwindles. Hobbs was up by 26,011 votes following the release of a fresh batch of results Sunday evening, with just over 180,000 estimated to remain. The Hobbs campaign issued a statement after the latest figures were released that called her “the unequivocal favorite to become the next Governor of Arizona.” “Katie has led since the first round of ballots were counted, and after tonight’s results, it’s clear that this won’t change,” said the statement, which was attributed to campaign manager Nicole DeMont. Full Article: Arizona: Maricopa County precincts with voting problems were not overwhelmingly Republican - The Washington Post

As Arizona counts votes, Republicans seize on Election Day glitches | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez , Isaac Stanley-Becker , Jon Swaine and Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post

Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, seized on technical glitches at dozens of polling locations in a key county to call Thursday for a special legislative session to overhaul the state’s voting system, which she would have the power to do if elected. Lake has yet to say that the election results can’t be trusted, as she did in 2020 when Joe Biden won the state. Her assertion that the system needs immediate change came as officials continued to count votes, a process they have warned could take up to 12 days. The results released so far show Lake, a former television news anchor, locked in a close contest with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state. Hobbs, meanwhile, wrote on Twitter: “This election will be determined by the voters, not by the volume at which an unhinged former television reporter can shout conspiracy theories.” On Tuesday, nearly a third of polling locations throughout Maricopa County — home to Phoenix and more than 60 percent of the state’s voters — had problems with the printers that produce ballots on demand for individual voters. Starting early Tuesday morning, printers at 70 of the county’s 223 polling sites produced ballots with ink that was too light to be properly read by vote-counting machines, causing the ballots to be rejected, according to county officials. These officials had previously said that a smaller number of sites had problems. Full Article: As Arizona counts votes, Republicans seize on Election Day glitches - The Washington Post

Arizona: It all turns on Maricopa County: Takeaways from a day of glitches, conspiracies and a lawsuit | Robert Anglen, Sasha Hupka and Corina Vaenk/Arizona Republic

The likely outcome of Arizona's statewide races hinges on what happens in Maricopa County after an Election Day that saw voting equipment glitches, ink-stained conspiracies and a lawsuit to extend polling hours. County election officials closed out the night with a promise to continue counting all ballots cast in the 2022 midterms. The tally already includes more than 880,000 ballots they had counted by midnight Tuesday. They estimated residents cast 248,000 ballots in person at polling stations on Election Day. Equipment problems that affected at least 30% of the county's voting centers and prompted a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee will not delay results or interrupt the tabulation process, election officials said. Full Article: Maricopa County election glitches, conspiracies and a lawsuit

Arizona county’s plan to hand-count ballots blocked by judge | Bob Christie/Associated Press

A judge on Monday blocked a rural Arizona county’s plan to conduct a full hand-count of ballots from the current election — a measure requested by Republican officials who expressed unfounded concerns that vote-counting machines are untrustworthy. The ruling from Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey F. McGinley came after a full-day hearing on Friday during which opponents presented their case and called witnesses. An appeal of the judge’s decision is likely. Election Day is Tuesday. McGinley said the county board of supervisors overstepped its legal authority by ordering the county recorder to count all the ballots cast in the election that concludes on Tuesday rather than the small sample required by state law. The opponents who sued to stop the proposed hand-count — a group called the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans — argued that state law only allows a small hand-count of early ballots to ensure the counting machines are accurate. Group members argued that a last-minute change would create chaos and potentially delay certification of the election results. Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra also opposed the plan for the expanded count and testified about how it could delay results and imperil ballot security. Full Article: Arizona county's plan to hand-count ballots blocked by judge | AP News

‘We’re Afraid’: Arizona Town That Inspired Debunked Voter Fraud Film Braces for Election Day | Jack Healy and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

It was a jumpy, 20-second video clip that touched off a firestorm: During a local primary election two years ago, the former mayor of this farm town of San Luis, Ariz., was filmed handling another voter’s ballot. She appeared to make a few marks, and then sealed it and handed a small stack of ballots to another woman to turn in. That moment outside a polling place in August 2020 thrust this town along the southern border into the center of stolen-election conspiracy theories, as the unlikely inspiration for the debunked voter fraud film “2,000 Mules.” Activists peddling misinformation and supported by former President Donald J. Trump descended on San Luis. The Republican attorney general of Arizona opened an investigation into voting, which is still ongoing. The former mayor, Guillermina Fuentes, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years probation for ballot abuse — or what the attorney general called “ballot harvesting” — a felony under Arizona law. Ms. Fuentes is one of four women in San Luis who have now been charged with illegally collecting ballots during the primaries, including the second woman who appears on the video. But there have been no charges of widespread voter fraud in San Luis linked to the presidential election. Liberal voting-rights groups and many San Luis residents say that investigators, prosecutors and election-denying activists have intimidated voters and falsely tied their community to conspiracy theories about rampant, nationwide election fraud. The film “2,000 Mules,” endorsed by Mr. Trump, has helped to keep those claims alive, and is often cited by election-denying candidates across the country. Full Article: Town That Inspired Debunked Voter Fraud Film Braces for Election Day - The New York Times

Arizona: Pinal County rejects ballot hand count sought by supervisor | Robert Anglen/Arizona Republic

Pinal County will not conduct an expanded hand count of ballots cast in the Nov. 8 election. The Pinal County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday unanimously rejected a plan to increase the percentage of ballots counted by hand in order to ensure voting machines are accurate. Republican Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh, who sought the expanded hand count as a more reliable test of voting machines, ultimately voted against his own proposal after a barrage of community opposition. "This is what good government should look like," he said, praising the nearly two-hour meeting as an important hearing on individual concerns. Cavanaugh's comments contrasted with his opening remarks, when he raised the issue of "dismantling" voting machines before checking himself and saying he wasn't going to talk about that. He shifted instead to voting machine accuracy. "There has been concern and commentary from both sides of the aisle, the most notable, of course, President Trump ... saying elections are stolen," he said. "I'm not getting into the issue of whether there's code in the machines that change the vote." Full Article: Pinal County rejects ballot hand count sought by supervisor

Arizona’s Republican Attorney General gives county OK for full ballot hand counts | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Arizona’s Republican attorney general has issued an opinion saying county officials can hand-count all ballots in at least five races from the Nov. 8 election, a move that gives a green light to GOP officials in at least two counties who have been clamoring for hand counts. The efforts to hand-count ballots are driven by unfounded concerns among some Republicans that problems with vote-counting machines or voter fraud led to former President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat. The new attorney general opinion led the two Republicans on the three-member Cochise County board of supervisors to boost their plan to hand-count some races in both early and Election Day ballots. They had pledged to pare back the effort on Wednesday. Under state law, the local leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties would have to provide hundreds of volunteers to do the counts. At a fiery meeting Friday, Democratic Supervisor Ann English said she’ll do everything she can to stop the county Democratic Party chair from providing those workers. “It would be my fondest hope, that if I have any authority, any way that I can convince the chair of the Democratic party in Cochise County not to provide people for this fiasco that will be my intent,” English said. “Because I think that every day that we’re discussing this, then people are wondering ‘what’s wrong with our elections.’ ” ... The hand count would take place along with the machine count, and the machine count will be used for the legal results.

Full Article: Arizona AG gives county OK for full ballot hand counts | AP News

Arizona: Justice Department says ‘vigilante ballot security efforts’ are likely illegal | Marshall Cohen/CNN

The allegations “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation,” the Justice Department wrote, adding that “vigilante ballot security efforts” and “private campaigns to video record voters” likely violate the federal Voting Rights Act. “Citizen-led election monitoring activities are more likely to put voters in reasonable fear of harassment, intimidation, coercion, or interference with their voting rights,” DOJ added. The department did not take a formal position on what the judge should do. The lawsuit pits the League of Women Voters against several right-wing groups that have promoted false claims about voter fraud and the 2020 election. The group accused the groups of sending vigilante poll watchers, including some with guns and wearing tactical gear, to videotape and intimidate voters at drop boxes. Full Article: DOJ weighs in on ballot drop box intimidation lawsuit

Arizona’s Bulwark Against Trumpism Was Just a Mirage | David Siders/Politico

On a stage backed up to a rodeo ring between a barbecue restaurant and a petting zoo, dusk fell over the Arizona desert and several thousand Kari Lake supporters fell into prayer for Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, for “the army of patriots that you are raising up in this hour” and, ultimately, for a “divine turnaround” in Arizona. The event was a rally for Lake, and following the supporter who said the prayer, Austin Smith, a Republican state House candidate, told rallygoers they were “chosen” — a state of “pioneers, ranchers, working-class families” in conflict with forces of a “global world order.” “We want to make sure that Arizona is the Wild West, right?” he asked. With their Lake flags and buckets of beer, the crowd erupted. The opening lines of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blared and Lake strode on stage. Two years ago, the current occupant of the office Lake is seeking, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, had certified Joe Biden’s victory, the first for a Democratic presidential candidate in the state since 1996, infuriating then-President Donald Trump and his supporters. The Republican state House speaker, Rusty Bowers, also resisted Trump’s pressure campaign, then testified before the Jan. 6 committee about it. Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state and, now, Lake’s opponent in the gubernatorial race, had overseen the election. Full Article: Arizona’s Bulwark Against Trumpism Was Just a Mirage - POLITICO

Arizona: Cochise County supervisors approve hand count of election ballots | Sarah Lapidus/Arizona Republic

The Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted Monday to require a full hand recount of ballots for the Nov. 8 election, despite dire warnings from attorneys and others that the move was unlawful and would result in a lawsuit and a potential loss of state funding. During a four-hour meeting and public testimony, Republican supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd voted for the measure put forth by Crosby. Supervisor Ann English, a Democrat, voted against it. "It's about the people, its about our right to vote and how our votes are counted and feel confident in the election process," Judd said during the meeting. State Elections Services Director Kori Lorick called into the meeting on behalf of the Secretary of State's Office and said the board would face a lawsuit if the hand-count proposal passed. A state lawmaker also warned the board that he would request that the attorney general investigate the board's move, which could result in the withholding of state funds to Cochise County. Lorick also said it would be "impossible to complete an accurate hand count of an election with dozens of races on the ballot without redirecting critical resources needed to run the election." With just two weeks until the election, she warned the proposal would cause voter confusion. Full Article: Cochise County supervisors approve hand count of election ballots

Arizona: Early voters in midterms report harassment by poll watchers | Rachel Leingang/The Guardian

A voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”. The voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office. The incident allegedly occurred at a Mesa, Arizona, outdoor drop box on the evening of 17 October. Early voting, both in person and via mailed ballots, began on 12 October ahead of the midterm elections. “There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot drop box filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the drop box and accusing us of being a mule. They took a photographs [sic] of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film,” the voter wrote in the complaint. In Arizona, voters can only drop off ballots for themselves, people in their households or families, or people they’re providing care for. Other states don’t ban so-called ballot harvesting. The practice became illegal in Arizona in 2016. Full Article: Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchers | US midterm elections 2022 | The Guardian

Arizona: Cochise County continues pursuit of hand-count despite warnings | Jen Fifled/AZ MMirror

Supervisors in Cochise County said Tuesday they are intent on voting on a proposal to hand-count all ballots cast in November’s election, despite repeated warnings from their lawyer that the plan would be illegal. Deputy Cochise County attorney Christine Roberts repeatedly told the supervisors that state law does not give them the authority to conduct a full hand count of ballots cast by the county’s 87,000 voters, and even if it did, it isn’t legal to change election procedures this close to an election. She may be able to prevent them from moving forward. The county attorney’s office must approve items before they are placed on a supervisors meeting agenda, County Administrator Rich Karwaczka told Votebeat after the meeting. “The county attorney would block something they believe is unlawful,” he said, adding that allowing a vote on an illegal proposal would increase the county’s liability and risk. Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, both Republicans, want to continue using vote-counting machines this election, and to add a full hand count, as first reported by Votebeat. Together, they’re a majority on their three-person board. With Election Day only a few weeks away and early voting already under way, they didn’t offer details about how it would work or who would bear the costs. Full Article: Cochise County continues pursuit of hand-count despite warnings | State | eacourier.com

Arizona county mulls ballot hand-count, but lawyer says no | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Officials in a southeastern Arizona county were prepared to move ahead with a plan to hand count all ballots in November’s election alongside the normal machine count on Tuesday, but at the last minute the county attorney told the board they had no legal authority to do so. The advice from Chief Deputy Cochise County Attorney Christine Roberts seemed to stun two members of the county board who are pushing the hand-count, egged on by voters who believe in false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. They had brought the proposal to the three-member board just a day before early voting starts and ballots are mailed to residents across the state for the Nov. 8 election. “In this case, I don’t get where we would be breaking the law if we chose to train a group of volunteers and put them the driver’s seat for a minute hand-counting,” Republican Supervisor Peggy Judd said. “I don’t know that this is something that we can’t look into. I feel very strongly that we can.” Judd said she was acting to try to assuage voters who believe there are problems with voting systems in the state, although she praised Cochise County’s elections department and county recorder, who together oversee elections. Republican Supervisor Tom Crosby also proposed the hand-count, while board Chair Ann English, a Democrat, did not take a public position. Full Article: Arizona county mulls ballot hand-count, but lawyer says no | AP News

Arizona: DOJ: Man threatened to kill election officials | Jose R. Gonzalez/Arizona Republic

An Iowa man arrested Thursday is accused of threatening to kill Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman and an official at the Arizona Attorney General's Office. Mark A. Rissi, 64, of Hiawatha, Iowa, was charged with two counts of making a threatening interstate communication and one count of making a threatening telephone call, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rissi was taken into custody in his city of residence and on Tuesday had an initial court appearance at a Cedar Rapids, Iowa federal courthouse, according to the DOJ. Rissi is suspected of leaving an expletive-filled voicemail on Sept. 27, 2021, for a Maricopa County Board supervisor and telling the official he and others were going to "lynch" him for "lying" about the 2020 election results, according to a department press release. On Tuesday, Hickman's office confirmed he was the county board supervisor Rissi was said to have threatened. A statement from Hickman said he has been threatened "numerous times" in the past two years, along with some of his other colleagues on the board. Full Article: DOJ: Man threatened to kill election officials in Arizona

Arizona election integrity unit found little fraud, exacerbated suspicions | Beth Reinhard and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

Republicans across the country have embraced an aggressive tactic this year as they seek to tout baseless claims that voter fraud is a serious threat: arming state agencies with more power and resources to investigate election crimes. Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.” Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency to launch election probes. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month described the arrests of 20 people for alleged illegal voting as the “opening salvo” of a new elections police force. But a Washington Post examination of an earlier endeavor in Arizona to systematically ferret out voter fraud found it has turned up few cases — and that rather than bolster confidence in elections, the absence of massive fraud has just fueled more bogus theories and distrust. After investigating thousands of complaints in the past three years, a special unit in the Arizona attorney general’s office created to crack down on illegal voting and other election-related crimes has prosecuted just 20 cases in a state of more than 4 million voters. The total represents a slight increase from the 16 cases brought by the office in a previous six-year period, according to court filings and hundreds of pages of public records. Full Article: Arizona election integrity unit found little fraud, exacerbated suspicions - The Washington Post

Arizona is ground zero in the battle over ‘the big lie’ | Ethan Bauer/Deseret News

Rusty Bowers is a worried man. Retreating to a dark room within his suite at Arizona’s sun-baked capitol complex, he sinks into a couch, tall and slender in a purple dress shirt. With a prominent mole above his left brow, the speaker of the state’s house looks you in the eye as he talks — until the conversation turns to the subject of his fears. Then his gaze drifts and he stares into the distance, speaking of the “world of hurt” he believes his political rivals will unleash should they prevail in the midterm elections this November. Remarkably, those rivals are from his own party. Bowers is a lifelong Republican and a staunch conservative who regularly votes along party lines on issues like taxes and abortion. He holds a 92 percent rating from the NRA, a 20 percent rating from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona and abysmal reviews from environmental organizations like the Sierra Club. Unlike some prominent members of the GOP, he supported former President Donald Trump throughout his term in office, though it ended on a sour note. “He did some good for this country, for which I’m grateful,” Bowers says, “but he’s unfit to serve as our president.” Full Article: Arizona election: Candidates take sides over “the big lie” - Deseret News

Mark Finchem Says Biden Didn’t Win in 2020, and He Has Big Plans for Elections in Arizona | Katherine Miller/The New York Times

Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for Arizona’s secretary of state, talks a lot about tracking: procedures, processes, audits, the path a ballot takes from voter to tabulator. He’s a member of the Arizona State House of Representatives and has a formal way of speaking, full of numerical legislation titles and terminology, but also talks about things seen and unseen. Like a number of other Republican nominees for secretary of state this year, Mr. Finchem claims the last presidential election was fraudulent. “Here’s why we know it didn’t happen,” he told an interviewer who had just suggested Arizona may have actually voted for Joe Biden in 2020. “It’s nonsense intuitively. Leading up to the election, this would be August, September, October. It first started off that you’d see a Trump train of maybe a dozen cars, and this is in my community. It’s one community, but I think it’s fairly representative of Arizona. You’d see a Trump train of maybe a dozen cars.” The hosts start cracking jokes about Biden trains behind gas stations these days, but in the interview, Mr. Finchem remains undeterred and unlaughing: First it was 12 cars, then 24, then 48, culminating in a three-mile Trump train. This is the kind of thing Mr. Finchem will abruptly say amid talk of election procedure. In November 2020, Mr. Finchem was part of a hearing in Arizona where Rudy Giuliani aired claims of election fraud; Mr. Finchem went to Washington on Jan. 6. He wants to decertify the 2020 election and for Arizona to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonpartisan organization funded by participating states that helps them to find potential voters and determine duplicate active registrations. He also could win in Arizona this year; the state has been decidedly close the past several elections. His public comments tend to be premised on the possibility of rampant voter fraud — which, in actuality, takes place rarely — and to reflect a kind of individualism that’s a part of the tech and society we already have, where individuals routinely arbitrate and police disputes online. Full Article: Opinion | Mark Finchem Says Biden Didn’t Win in 2020, and He Has Big Plans for Elections in Arizona - The New York Times

Arizona GOP candidates appeal ruling against hand counts | Associated Press

The Republican candidates for Arizona governor and secretary of state on Wednesday appealed a federal judge’s ruling that threw out a lawsuit they filed seeking to require the hand-counting of ballots in November’s election. Lawyers representing governor candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state hopeful Mark Finchem filed a notice saying they would ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revive their lawsuit. The pair sued in April, repeating unfounded allegations that vote-counting machines are not secure. Named in the lawsuit is Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the state’s top election official and the Democratic candidate for governor, and the majority Republican Maricopa County board of supervisors. U.S. District Judge John Tuchi dismissed their lawsuit late last month, saying they lacked the right to to sue because they failed to show any realistic likelihood of harm. He also noted that their lawsuit must be brought in state, not federal, court and that it is too close to the election to upend the process. “The 2022 Midterm Elections are set to take place on November 8,” Tuchi wrote in is ruling. “In the meantime, Plaintiffs request a complete overhaul of Arizona’s election procedures.” Full Article: Arizona GOP candidates appeal ruling against hand counts | AP News