Court case could delay certification of election results

An attempt by the Arizona Republican Party to force a new hand count of Maricopa County ballots could throw a wrench into the planned certification of election results by Friday, according to county attorneys.

The lawsuit, one of two pending challenges to Arizona’s election results, alleges county officials violated state law when they conducted a hand count audit based on vote centers instead of precincts.

The results of the vote center audit, which had bipartisan oversight, matched electronic counts exactly. But the GOP wants a new, precinct-based hand count — even though state statutes defer to the secretary of state’s election manual when it comes to vote centers.

In a preliminary Maricopa County Superior Court hearing Monday, Joseph La Rue, a lawyer for Maricopa County, said he’s not sure a precinct-based audit is feasible at all, let alone within the tight time frame.

Arizona counties have until Nov. 23 to complete their canvasses and submit final vote tallies to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

“Our ballots are not separated by precinct. They’re in bags by vote centers,” LaRue told Judge John Hannah. He said officials would have to open those bags and somehow sort them by precinct before starting a new audit if the court orders it.

“Whether … it’s possible to do it or not, that I can’t say for certain,” LaRue said. “But I can represent with certainty that this would be a time-consuming process for the county and will not be completed before the canvass, which is going to take place this week.”

Hannah opted to set a hearing for Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. to allow both sides to present fuller arguments. Two intervenors, the Secretary of State’s Office and Arizona Democratic Party, also will participate.

The outcome of Wednesday’s hearing will determine whether county election officials can proceed with the canvass as planned.

Another preliminary hearing was held Monday for the other election-related lawsuit, which involves two Arizona voters.

One of them, Laurie Aguilera, is the same plaintiff who filed a now defunct suit against the county over the use of Sharpies on Election Day.

According to her attorney, Alexander Kolodin, when Aguilera went to vote, the tabulator did not display any confirmation that her ballot was accepted, as it had for her husband’s ballot. According to the lawsuit, when Aguilera requested a new ballot, poll workers refused to provide her one.

She was therefore concerned her ballot hadn’t been counted. There is no way Maricopa County can confirm it was, Kolodin says, since election officials have no way to isolate a specific voter’s ballot after the fact.

Kolodin also contends the other voter, Donovan Drobina, was denied a count “via a fully automated and perfect process” because his ballot had to go through an additional layer of review.

The group is asking a judge to allow Aguilera to cast a new ballot and to open the electronic adjudication process to the public going forward. Electronic adjudication machines help isolate errors on ballots so election officials can correct them, assuming a voter’s intent is clear.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Margaret Mahoney set an evidentiary hearing for Friday.

Attorneys for the county have asked her to dismiss the case.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have continued to try to insert themselves into the process.

Last week, Republican U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and David Schweikert sent a letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors requesting a “100 percent audit of ballots cast to allow tabulators to review ballot images and compare the results to current totals.”

They did not, however, identify any problems with the election in Maricopa County.