New filings from Abe Hamade’s lawyers show he is growing impatient with the delay in making a decision. They are asking Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jansen to hold a scheduled meeting to set a deadline for pretrial matters. They cite a court rule that if a litigant requests a hearing, the court “must set” a hearing.

The petition was signed by Attorney Jennifer Wright, one of several attorneys representing Mr. Hamade in his efforts to overturn the closest statewide election in Arizona’s history. An automatic recount put Mays ahead of Hamade by just 280 votes in November, down from a victory of 511 votes after the initial count.

Before Mays took office, Wright headed the election integrity office of former Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovic.

He said the request to Jansen was unusual but important because if Hamade wins the new trial, Mays will be ousted and replaced.

“Plaintiffs understand that this Court has not yet ruled on the motions for a new trial and do not speculate as to what this Court may deem appropriate and fair. ‘” Wright wrote, but said that setting a deadline would “shorten the time frame.” For Arizonas, uncertainty is growing as to who will be duly elected by voters as the state’s true attorney general in the November 2022 general election. ”

Election lawyers not involved in the case say there is likely a more nuanced reason for the charges.

Eric Spencer, a Phoenix election attorney and former state elections director, said: “In some cases, it can be seen as a wink, a nod, or a request for the court to expedite a decision on a disputed issue. said Eric Spencer, a Phoenix election attorney and former state elections director. “It is a perfectly acceptable practice to put anything in a court’s mailbox that could have the collateral effect of hastening another judgment.”

Hamade filed suit for the first time to suspend the results a month after the 2022 general election. In December, Jansen ruled against Hamade’s original election challenge, saying he could not prove he received more votes than Mays.

Keeping the case alive is an automated recount that found nearly 500 uncounted ballots in Pinal County. Hamade said he recovered 392 of them.

That wasn’t enough to close the gap with Mays, who was declared the winner by 280 votes out of more than 2.5 million votes statewide.

Pinal County officials have since blamed the disparity on human error.

Attorneys for the Republican candidate sought a new trial, arguing that the current governor: Katie Hobbs did not disclose the recount results during the first December trial in Hamade’s case. Hobbes, a Democrat, was then secretary of state and head of election administration in Arizona.

Wright also claimed that more than 1,000 ballots were not counted due to problems with voter registration.

He also wants to look at ballots that don’t show votes in the Attorney General election to see if Hamade was actually voted.

More than 50,000 ballots in Maricopa County showed so-called “undervoting” in the Attorney General election, where voters made their selections in other elections, but that election was skipped according to machine counts. This is very important because it means Despite the tension, the public and Hamade are entitled to a close scrutiny of the ballot to make sure Mays is indeed the winner.

All of this led to a hearing on May 16, at which Mr. Hamade’s lawyers insisted on a fresh trial in December.

Hobbes’ attorneys, Mays’ attorneys, and Maricopa County attorneys argued that Hamade was wrong about the law and the facts and urged Jantzen to abandon his attempts to force a retrial. As for his claim that the recount results were covered up, he said Hobbes was prevented from publishing the results before the judge did.

At the hearing, they told Jantzen that Mr. Hamade and his lawyers were fishing and had no actual evidence to support his claims.

“Rather, their argument in this court can be summed up as ‘The election was coming. Told.

At the end of the hearing on May 16, the judge said he hoped to have a ruling on the new lawsuit “within the next few weeks.”

That didn’t happen. According to the rules governing state courts, he has 60 days to decide on the case and must do so by mid-July.

Spencer said he was not considering new court filings and said a new court decision in Hamade’s favor could overturn decades-old rules for contesting election results. said to be sexual.

State law provides very early deadlines for election challenges so that the process can be completed within two months after the election and the public and candidates can be confident of the outcome.

“If you go to court with the information you have at the time, all those issues will be resolved within a few weeks of the canvas going into effect,” Spencer said, referring to what happened in early December. rice field.

“But if this motion for a new trial is successful and discovery takes place, litigants appear to have found a way to sort of resolve these issues in the months ahead,” Spencer said. It would allow Mr. Hamade to “make the kind of robust discovery that is not normally available” in election litigation, which is usually expedited.

“And they would have found a loophole in existing campaign practices,” he said.