Corrections and Clarifications: Jennifer Wright endorsed then-State Senator Nancy Balto ahead of the 2022 election. An earlier version of the article misspelled the name of the politician Wright endorsed.
The former head of the Arizona Attorney General’s Election Integrity Division has joined a legal battle to overturn the results of the closest election in the state’s history.
About three weeks after resigning, Jennifer Wright announced that she wanted to oust newly elected Democratic Attorney General Chris Mays and replace Republican candidate Abe Hamade.
Wright, who said he would have postponed his resignation if Hamade beat Mays in the recount, said human and machine errors disenfranchised hundreds of voters in Arizona County, and the new trial will prevent him from taking office in 2022. He will prove himself the rightful winner of the election.
“Evidence was withheld, machines failed to tally, incorrectly marked undervotes, and it appears that some provisional ballots were incorrectly dismissed,” Wright said on social media Jan. 18. in a post on , after announcing that she was joining and assisting Hamade’s legal team. He files an election lawsuit.
Wright was an attorney who filed legal claims with Maricopa County officials after the November 8 general election, and was forced out of the law after equipment problems prevented machines from reading ballots at about 30% of polling places. alleging that it may have violated She had also posted her support for conservative candidates and positions on social media in the weeks before the election.
In a statement to the Republic of Arizona on January 19, Wright said Hamade should be given a new trial to ensure all legal votes were counted.
“Based on the withheld and newly discovered evidence, when all legal votes were tallied, Mr. Hamade received the most votes and should be declared Arizona’s attorney general. I believe,” she said in a statement.
In December, a Mojave County Superior Court judge dismissed Mr. Hamade’s election challenge. One of the reasons for this is that, upon examining sample ballots, he did not receive the votes necessary to defeat Mr. Mays, who was leading by 511 votes at the time.
However, when the official results of the recount were released on December 29 and the judge declared Mays the official winner, Mays’ margin of victory shrunk to 280 votes. It was related to counting error.
Wright said Gov. Katie Hobbs, who served as secretary of state in the 2022 election, withheld “significant evidence” from the court about the error that led to the misreading of the vote.
“Additionally, information disclosed by Maricopa County after the trial suggests that hundreds of voters were disenfranchised when their provisional ballots appeared to have been mistakenly dismissed in error.”
County elections officials say certified election results are accurate and no provisional ballots have been incorrectly rejected.they surveyed 7,803 votes and the results of the survey are publicly available.
Hamade called Wright a “powerhouse of election lawyers” in a Jan. 17 statement posted to social media. said.
“There are still hundreds of votes to count,” Hamade said in a statement. “Democracy wants accurate results in our elections and I know Jen will fight relentlessly to make sure every voter’s voice is heard.”
Wright has also put up a fight against Mays, both privately and publicly. In a series of posts on her media on Jan. 18, Wright said she joined Hamade’s team after the Attorney General’s Office falsely claimed she was coerced into doing her job, and that she was forced to join the Republic. This is related to the story in
“However, after @krismayes targeted me by attacking me illegally and illegally on @azcentral, it became clear that the new administrators intended to abuse their power. ” hold her legally responsible. ”
A spokesperson for Mays’ office told The Republic that Wright was fired from his job three times between January 4 and 6. It announced that Wright had resigned, saying officials had notified him “several times” in late November and December that he would not remain in the administration of former Attorney General Mark Brnovic.
Wright’s attorneys sent letters to Mays and staff members accusing the firm of Wright’s politically based “willful discrimination” and violation of employee confidentiality laws.
Wright provided the Republic with a copy of his letter of resignation dated December 31, which was the Saturday of the holiday weekend. The Attorney General’s Human Resources Office confirmed that it received Wright’s letter on January 3, the day after Mays took office, according to another document provided by Wright. It asked Wright to verify her exit papers and said state equipment, including her state ID, must be turned over to her direct supervisor.
Wright said in a January 19 statement that he had initially refused to take Hamade’s case, but changed his mind “after the spotlight” on the circumstances of his departure.
“I decided that lending my expertise to a worthy yet high-profile cause like this was a worthwhile endeavor,” she said.
In a separate email, Wright told Republic that had Hamade won the election, she would have stayed in the Electoral Integrity Unit, but said, “Our visions for the Electoral Integrity Unit do not match May’s.” It was made clear by an official statement.”
Mays has pledged to shift the unit’s primary mission from investigating allegations of voter fraud to combating voter intimidation and threats to election officials.
Mr. Brnovic hired Mr. Wright in 2019 to run the newly created division funded by Republican lawmakers after the Democratic nominee lost the 2018 election.
About 10 days before sending a letter ordering officials to answer a series of questions before proving the election results, Wright criticized county officials and criticized election day procedures, according to a November investigation by The Republic. had made allegations regarding
Republicans discovered that she liked and retweeted a Republican candidate’s post and endorsed another post on Twitter just weeks before the election.
Between October 23rd and November 6th, Wright liked several posts by Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Earlier, Wright had retweeted Hamade’s post, saying he was looking forward to electing Senator Nancy Baltic to her next term.
Lake and Hamade were endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Both would sue for their losses and potentially profit from Wright’s Maricopa County election investigation.
Wright said in Hamade’s Jan. 17 statement, “I look forward to being freed from an office that Chris Mays should never have occupied in the first place.”
Wright, who has been featured on conservative radio shows and publications, said he would not back down from the fight.
“My plan was never to stay in public,” she said in a Jan. 18 post. I am not upset.”
Robert Angren is an investigative reporter for the Republic.contact him robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8694. follow him on twitter @robertanglen.
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