Attorney General Mark Brunovich is calling on Maricopa County to respond to statements he believes violate state election law.

In Saturday’s letter, his office said it had received “hundreds of complaints” about how the county managed the general election.

“While these complaints go beyond pure speculation, they do include first-hand testimony that raises concerns regarding Maricopa’s legal compliance with Arizona’s election laws,” Jennifer Wright wrote. She leads the agency’s electoral integrity unit.

“Furthermore, statements made by both Chairman (Bill) Gates and Registrar (Stephen) Richer, as well as information released by Maricopa County through official channels of communication, appear to confirm potential statutory violations of Title 16. looks like,” she said. .

Wright also hinted that the investigation could delay the final determination of the election results.

“These issues relate to Maricopa County’s ability to legally prove election results,” she said. As such, she has until Nov. 28, when the county plans to submit the official canvas for the ballot to the Office of the Secretary of State, for answers to the questions.

The letter already shows Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, but argues that Republican voters are disenfranchised and the election results cannot be proven. Lake also said he is consulting with his lawyer about his options.

At the same time, the race for attorney general remains close, with Democrat Chris Mays leading Republican Abe Hamade on Sunday, winning 850 of the more than 2.5 million votes already tallied. Fewer than 3,400 votes were unsuccessful, all from Maricopa County.

Wright, however, gave no indication that what her office ultimately found or the conclusions it reached would change the outcome of the race.

Fields Moseley, a spokesman for the supervisor, said he would not hear back until the board considered the request. A Richer spokesperson did not immediately respond.

Most of the issues Wright wants to address relate to Election Day issues at the county’s 60 vote centers.

Vote centers allow residents to go anywhere. This also means that individual ballots tailored to each voter must be printed on the spot.

The only problem was that the printers at the 60+ Vote Centers were producing ballots that the on-site counters couldn’t read.

The problem was discovered within an hour of the 6am opening. However, it took me until the afternoon to discover that the problem was related to the printer’s fuser. The fuser was heated to fuse the toner to the paper and was not set high enough. This is an issue that did not exist in early voting centers.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brunovich visited and spoke at Yuma Sun in Yuma, Arizona on June 2nd. In a letter to Maricopa County officials on Saturday, Brunovich said his office had received “hundreds of complaints” about how the county managed the general election. Photo by Randy Hoeft/Yuma Sun via Associated Press)

As a result, people were told they had two options. Either go to another polling place or put your ballot in tabulator “Door 3” and take it to the Central Elections Office to be counted at the end of the day.

The result was long lines as people repeatedly tried to get the tallyers to read their ballots. We also followed the recommendation of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelly Ward to keep ballots out of Door 3.

Wright said in the letter that both options pose problems.

Gates said he used the e-Pollbook to check in to a polling place, but told people who were having trouble voting that they could “check out” and then vote at another polling place. Wright said an affidavit filed with her agency showed that wasn’t happening.

“Not only did polling place workers report that they were not trained and/or provided with information on how to perform the ‘checkout’ procedure, many voters reported that Voters are reporting that their provisional ballots must be cast as electronic ballots. The ballot book claimed voters had voted at their original polling place,” she said. And Wright pointed out that Arizona law specifically prohibits those provisional ballots from being counted if the record shows multiple sign-ins.

That raises the question of how many of those votes were not counted. Wright wants a detailed report of all voters affected.

Door 3’s problem is different. She said there is evidence that the county did not follow legal guidelines in separating, counting, counting and shipping those ballots.

“In fact, Maricopa County has admitted that some polling places had their Door 3 uncounted ballots mixed up with ballots that were counted at the polling place,” she said. “In addition, election observers told her that from one polling place, she had more than 1,700 Door 3 uncounted ballots placed in her bag in a black duffel meant to be used for tallied ballots. I have received a sworn complaint stating that I was

County officials acknowledged the problem at a press conference. However, they said canceling all votes already counted at that vote center and recounting all votes solved the problem.

But Mr Wright didn’t know how many ballots were mixed up, how many were put in a black duffel bag, when and how the county became aware of the problem, and how it was ultimately resolved. I would like to know more details such as

of new york times On Saturday, it said it investigated complaints from some Lake supporters who were having Election Day problems at polling places in the Phoenix area. reported that

Brnovic has yet to issue a final report in an ongoing investigation into how the county handled the 2020 election.

In an interim report earlier this year, Brnovic said he had found several instances of people breaking the law.

Several have been indicted and convicted.

He also made recommendations regarding changes to state laws and election procedures.

But the attorney general said he found no evidence that the election results were rigged or that Donald Trump won the popular vote.

And in August, Brnovic exposed the allegations through an “audit” conducted by Cyber ​​Ninja, a company hired by Republican Senate Speaker Karen Huang to investigate the 2020 election.

“Our agents investigated every individual who reported that a cyber ninja had died,” he said. I am surprised.”

These findings came just before the Republican primary election in which Brnovic ran for U.S. Senate. he came in his third place. The race was won by Blake Masters, who later lost to incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.

And just before this year’s general election, Brnovic called the Republican claim that the 2020 election was stolen “absurd,” and on “60 Minutes,” he said, “Last year, let’s scrape it out of my shoes.” I was doing it,” he said.

Joe Biden won the state’s 11 electoral votes by 10,457 votes.

Brnovic also called Lake’s denial of the election results a “great frustration.”