PHOENIX — Lawyers for the Republican candidate who lost last year’s Arizona Attorney General election requested a retrial on Tuesday in an effort to overturn the results of the November campaign.
they claim Abraham Hamade He actually won because a number of provisional votes supposedly cast for him were erroneously disqualified, and some undervotes were discarded because the marks were unclear.
Democrat Chris Mays He was declared the winner of the election at the end of December and has been in that position since the beginning of the year.
Hamade State Attorney Jennifer Wright told Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee F. Jansen that the problem was discovered during a recount in rural Pinal County, and statewide about 2.5 out of 2.5 votes for both candidates. With the gap narrowing from 511 to 280, his client said he needed a new trial. a million.
“This lawsuit is not about fraud, it’s about new evidence, it’s about facts,” Wright said.
Alexis Dannemann, a representative for the attorney general’s office, said the request was “unprecedented.”
Mr. Dannemann said Mr. Hamade’s lawyers basically argued that: If you let me keep looking, maybe I’ll find something. ”
Jantzen said he would make a decision in the coming weeks.
The lawsuit is one of the cases still remaining in Arizona courts six months after an election in which the Democrats won the top race in the former Republican stronghold.
Former TV anchor Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, also claimed a loss against Democrat Katie Hobbs, who took office in January, despite the court’s ruling. continuing. most of her lawsuits were dismissed.
a 3 days trial The lawsuit is set to begin Wednesday over the only remaining legal claim in Lake’s challenge to his defeat against Hobbs six months ago.
Lake made the election of former President Donald Trump a centerpiece of his campaign. Most of the other election naysayers across the country gave in after losing the November campaign, but Mr. Lake persisted.
Republicans had nominated pro-Trump candidates focused on supporting Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election. In addition to Hobbes and Mays, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly was reelected, and Democrat Adrian Fontes won the secretary of state race.
Earlier this month, the Arizona Supreme Court sanctioned Lake’s attorneys for $2,000 in an unsuccessful challenge to Hobbes’ victory.
The state Supreme Court said Mr. Lake’s attorneys made “false statements of fact” alleging that more than 35,000 votes were improperly added to the total votes cast.
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