A federal judge Friday refused to ban the group From monitoring outdoor ballot boxes Arizona’s largest county said doing so could violate its constitutional rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Libbledi ruled on Friday. In Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, and rural Yavapai County, with the midterm elections approaching, there were reports of people looking at his ballot boxes outdoors 24 hours a day, with both local and federal elections taking place. law enforcement agencies are sounding the alarm.

Liburdi I merged the two cases It advocates intimidating voters at outdoor ballot boxes and is considering whether to ban people from monitoring the site, taking pictures or videos, or following voters.

A sheriff’s deputy provides security around two outdoor drop boxes in Maricopa County after two masked men wearing tactical gear showed up at a box in the Mesa suburb of Phoenix. Another 24-hour outdoor drop-box for the county is located at the Maricopa County Counting and Election Center in downtown Phoenix, now surrounded by a chain link fence.

Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brunovich called on voters to immediately report any threats to the police and file a complaint with his office. The Arizona secretary of state said this week that he had six cases of possible voter intimidation against the state’s attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as threatening emails sent to state election officials.

Arizona’s federal attorney’s office has vowed to prosecute all violations of federal law, but local police are “allowing all eligible voters to exercise their right to vote without intimidation or other electoral fraud.” I am in charge of the front line to do so,” he said. .”

“We strongly protect the right of all Arizonans to vote freely and lawfully during elections,” the office said Wednesday. As several election threat-related cases, pending federal felony charges, show, crossing the line does not go unaddressed.”

In the first case, a group of Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voting Latinos will meet in Liburdi on Wednesday, members of a group calling themselves Clean Elections USA, within sight of a Maricopa County drop box, to voters. Asked to be banned from following, taking pictures or taking pictures. Videos of them and their cars.

Attorneys for Clean Elections USA said such a broad injunction is unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the Arizona agency Citizens Clean Elections Commission unanimously asked Thursday to seek a court order from its attorneys to stop oversight groups from using the name “Clean Elections” if necessary. voted in. A commission set up in 1998 to provide voters with nonpartisan election information said it was inundated with angry calls from people who confused it with the surveillance group.

A second lawsuit, incorporated into the first lawsuit, concerns ballot boxes in Yavapai County, Arizona, where the League of Women Voters, along with related Lions of Liberty and the Yavapai County Preparation Team, accused voters of being intimidated by Clean Elections USA. I claim. Cooperating with the far-right anti-government group “Oath Keepers”.

Lions of Liberty board member Luke Cyrano said the organization canceled its “Operation Drop Box” initiative on Wednesday.

Cyrano said the “official cease and desist order” for all members was in response to pending lawsuits.

“Our goal is not to scare people into not voting,” he said. “We love this country so much.”

Cyrano said the Liberty Lions have nothing to do with Clean Elections USA. His group is connected to the Yavapai County Readiness Team, but the team is not involved in ballot box monitoring, he said.

Similar groups across the United States have embraced a discredited film called “2000 Mules.” The film alleges that people were paid to move between drop-boxes and stuff fraudulent ballots in the 2020 presidential election.

There is no evidence to support the idea that a network of Democratic-affiliated voting “mules” conspired to collect and deliver ballots to drop-boxes in either the 2020 presidential election or the upcoming midterm elections.

Republican Kari Lake, running for governor, has threatened voter integrity throughout her campaign. Arizona’s Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finkem tweeted, “Watch out for all the dropboxes. Period. Save the Republic.”

Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer, who is in charge of voter registration and early voting tallying, told CBS News this week:

Richer, a Republican, told CBS News that he was appalled by his party’s election naysayers.

“It’s particularly frustrating when people do it on purpose to satisfy their own desire for political status or profit,” he added.