Howard Fisher
Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX — Arizona senators voted Tuesday calling for new elections whenever a certain number of voters claimed they were “disenfranchised.”

SB 1695 defines the inclusion of time to sign an affidavit that must wait no less than 90 minutes outside the polling place to obtain provisional approval for voice voting. However, due to their cleverness, it may not be possible to distinguish between those who failed to vote and those who did eventually vote despite waiting times.

And it doesn’t take much.

Just 1,000 disenfranchised affidavits from Maricopa County voters, like those made by Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), will lead judges to order new elections within 60 days is needed. And to start an election again from a smaller county, we need only 250 affidavits.

In addition, a new ballot will be taken if election officials violate any section of the state elections law or the provisions of the Election Procedures Manual. However, the measure does not detail which violations count or whether even minor violations discard results.

Hoffman said Maricopa County has had problems not only with what happened in 2022, but with field counters not being able to read ballots printed there. The result was long lines, complicated by the fact that Arizona Republican officials told voters to bring their early ballots to the polling place instead of mailing them in, resulting in longer wait times. rice field.

But Hoffman said it’s more than what happened in 2022.

“Over the past 6, 8, 10 cycles, we’ve seen a gradual decline in the quality of elections being held in Maricopa County,” he said.

“There’s a problem going on in Pima County, and there’s a problem going on in Pinal County with multiple elections in a row,” Hoffman said. Civil servants may repeatedly break the law and not be held accountable. “

The move to establish a legal process to overturn future elections will see the organization that helped finance an “audit” of the 2020 elections accused Kari Lake of 2022, among now-stolen charges. It happens when you’re trying to help overturn a gubernatorial vote.

In a new filing, Tucson attorney David Hardy told the Arizona Supreme Court that the outcome of the election would have been different had the lower courts not agreed to admit “numerous violations of statute and procedure.” He said it would have been. Meaningful review.

He said a survey of those who said they had voted in November 2022 showed Lake outperformed Hobbes by 8 percentage points, according to the Rasmussen Report, which backs conservative claims. citing exit polls.

“Leaving such elections unexamined undermines public confidence in them and gives those who run future elections permission to manipulate the rules at will,” Hardy said. Stated.

He represents a coalition of groups including America’s Future, led by President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Flynn, who was found guilty of lying to the FBI about his contact with the Russian ambassador, was pardoned by Trump in late 2020.

Flynn also said in December 2020 that Trump would impose martial law to reverse the results of the 2020 election that Joe Biden won, possibly sending the military to “restart the election” in battleground states, including Arizona. said it should be deployed. lost.

America’s Future donated over $976,000 to Cyber ​​Ninjas in 2021. It is a company with no election auditing experience, hired by then-Senate Speaker Karen Huang to recount votes in the 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate elections.

Others in the coalition seeking to overturn the election include US public advocates who have championed religious conservative policies and fought against gay rights. The Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund that opposed the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. and the Legal Defense Fund of U.S. Constitutional Rights.

In pursuing SB 1695, Hoffman argues that a candidate cannot force a judge to accept a legal argument and overturn an election.

“Apparently today, the courts, who are the administrators of the law, no longer take the law seriously,” he said. This is why it is necessary to set procedures.

Queen Creek legislators were particularly outraged by wait times he said exceeded two hours at some polling places. And he said they’re accepting numbers provided by Maricopa County, but that takes into account the time between signing in and being able to vote, not the time they go out.

This echoed Lake’s legal claim that long lines resulted in voter suppression, as some people walked away in despondency. And she claims most of the people who showed up on her election day would have voted for her instead of Katie Hobbs.

Hoffmann reiterated that suppression claim, but took a different view.

“What happened in Maricopa, to be honest with God, I could find an example of in the Jim Crow era. said. in the south. ”

It is not clear what it takes for the number of allegedly disenfranchised voters to trigger new elections.

As rigged, within five days after the election, voters are required to submit an affidavit that they waited outside for more than 90 minutes “before completing and submitting their ballot.” Voting counts.

If there are enough affidavits (1,000 in Maricopa County and 250 in the rest of the state), the judge will have a “special master” certified in another county’s electoral process examine the affidavits to verify their veracity. I order you to determine the sex. .

At that point, the court will declare it a “failed election,” forbid the overseer to certify the vote, and order a new ballot within 60 days to be run by that special master. instruct to

Similar results would result if violations of election laws or election procedure manuals were found.

Likewise for the failure to maintain the “chain of control” of the ballots, which Lake claims is that illegal ballots were inserted into the system, costing Hobbes 17,117 votes. is one.

“It’s our job to instill confidence in both the process and the results,” Hoffman said.

“But when it’s clear that you’re disenfranchising voters and disenfranchising voters, it shouldn’t be allowed,” Hoffman said.

Democratic Tempe Senator Juan Mendes said the law was flawed.

“This proposal would allow any number of subjective claims, most likely misunderstandings about how the election works, to overturn the election,” he said. “This will help outlaw elections.

Aside from questions about what constitutes disenfranchisement, Tucson Democratic Senator Priya Sundareshan said there were logistical problems with Hoffman’s proposal.

She noted that state law sets deadlines for formal “canvases” for voting, and Sundareshan questioned what would happen if votes from one or more counties were missing.

It nearly happened last year after Cochise County supervisors were reluctant to prove their vote there. This led Hobbes to argue that the statewide canvas must continue without Cochise’s vote, effectively disenfranchising anyone who voted in the county.

None of that was required after the board went ahead with certification in the face of a court order.

The bill will await a final vote in the Senate before it goes to the House. If approved there, it must be signed by Hobbs before it becomes effective.