Bob Christie

Capitol Media Services

Lawyers for losing Arizona Attorney General candidate Abe Hamade will have to prove during Friday’s trial that miscounting ballots and other errors would have led to his victory, but all A judge ruled on Thursday to inspect ballots in three counties in just one day.

With just 511 votes separating Republican and Democratic nominee Chris Mays, Hamade’s attorney Timothy La Sota told Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jansen that the computer-generated tally of the votes cast in the election had to be processed. gave him access so he could narrow down the vote. He wants to explore Pima, Maricopa, and Navajo counties.

“We really need[the cast voting record]to make the two sides of the ballot,” La Sota told the judge at a Thursday morning hearing.

But Mr Jansen denied Mr La Sota’s request, saying that election law only allowed inspection of ballots, not access to the electronic records produced by the vote-counting machines. He also refused to postpone Friday’s one-day trial until next week, agreeing with Mays’ attorney that the tight deadline for state law on election contests prevented it.

Jansen also rejected Hamade’s request for an additional three-person panel to inspect the ballots and agreed with Mays attorney Alexis Dannemann and Maricopa and Navajo County attorneys to increase the inspection team. was not allowed.

But he said he believes the law allows each county to appoint a different inspection team. He ordered his lawyer to make a list of the members of those teams by noon so that they could be appointed at once.

“A ballot inspection by plaintiffs is required and I believe it must be done today,” Jantzen said. “I will hold a hearing tomorrow (Friday).”

La Sota said at the end of the hearing that the ballot test will focus only on so-called “undervoting”, i.e. votes not received in the Attorney General’s constituency when other constituencies voted. said it would happen. He had said at an earlier hearing that he believed vote tallers may have missed some of those votes.

Of the more than 2.5 million ballots cast statewide, about 40,000 voted for governor but not the election for attorney general.

Hamade’s electoral challenge in one of the tightest statewide elections in Arizona’s history faces high hurdles. State law stipulates that election results must be presumed to be accurate and evidence must be shown to prove that any error or fraud would lead to a different outcome.

Jansen also rejected La Sota’s efforts to obtain a list of provisional ballots and the names of those voters that Maricopa County had rejected. Many of them are erroneous because of the registration issues that Hamade’s lawsuit alleges.

“The list of provisional ballots and the names of those people are not ballots,” Jantzen said. “It’s not something you have to disclose.”

Hamade’s case alleges that four fundamental issues influenced the outcome. that some of the rejected provisional ballots should have been counted; Improper counting of departmental votes and day-of-day problems with polling machines at election polling stations left some voters unable to cast their ballots.

Automatic recounts are nearly complete, with 14 of the 15 counties sending results to the Secretary of State. The results were due to be announced at a court hearing on Thursday, but have been postponed until at least December 29.

The results of the recount in the Attorney General election were ordered to be held pending the conclusion of Hamade’s campaign. At your request, it was ordered to be postponed. It must be reviewed before it can be submitted to court.

Hobbes won the gubernatorial race, but faces an election race against Republican Kari Lake, who lost by more than 17,000 votes. The two-day trial in that case is set to end Thursday, and a Maricopa County judge said her intentional actions and illegal voting by Maricopa County election officials meant Hobbes actually lost. A ruling was to be issued later on whether Lake proved the allegations.

Losers in both the Lake-Hobbs case and the case involving Hamadeh and Mayes are expected to appeal immediately to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Time is tight. The new state official he is scheduled to take office on January 2nd.