On May 16, the Mojave County Superior Court ruled that listen Oral argument on a new trial motion filed by former Arizona Attorney General candidate Abraham Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee (RNC) in last year’s Attorney General election. It argues that not all legal votes were tallied in the former campaign against Attorney General Chris Mays, and that if they were, the results would show Hamade as the rightful winner.

“I am not only concerned with electoral integrity, [but also the belief] that there is a judicial system that can rectify evil [elections]’” Hamade told the Federalist.

Unlike most states that managed elections effectively in the 2022 midterm elections, Arizona was marred by chaos and incompetence.Maricopa County – home of almost 62 percent Of Arizona’s population of 7.2 million, poll workers in about 30 percent of the county’s vote centers reported that their respective ballot counting machines were denying voters their ballots.

[READ: Maricopa County Made Arizona’s Elections Even More Of A Disaster Than People Realize]

After the election, Hamade and the RNC lawsuit Alleges a number of improprieties by Arizona election officials, including “fraudulent disqualification of provisional and early voting,” “disqualification of provisional voters,” and “inaccurate duplication of ballots.” . The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by Judge Lee Jansen of the Mojave County Superior Court in December. control Hamade’s team failed to meet its burden of proof on his claims.

AG’s initial results of the race, which had shown Mays beating Hamade by 511 votes, were automatically recounted. found Hundreds of uncounted ballots in Pinal County clearly Mayes has a much smaller lead of 280 votes. Mr. Hamade and his RNC promptly filed motions for a new trial following the revelations.

Hamade and RNC Claims

Core of Hamade and RNC motion for retrial Since the Attorney General’s certification of the race, “[t]This is new and compelling information that not all legal votes were counted. Legal documents highlight state election recounts, particularly uncounted and miscounted votes found in Pinal County.

According to Jennifer Wright, an Arizona assistant attorney general who is currently working with Hamade’s legal team, part of the reason Mays’ lead over Hamade shrank after the recount was that Pinal County wasn’t counted the first time. It was due to dozens of “undervoting”. underestimation Occurs when “the number of options selected by a voter in an election is less than the maximum number allowed for that election.” In Pinal’s case, such discrepancies were discovered only after officials conducted a physical audit of the aforementioned ballots and cross-checked them with machine results.

Wright continued to claim that he was the Democratic Secretary of State at the time and is now governor. Katie Hobbs was “aware” of the discrepancy in Pinal County at the time of Hamade’s trial in December, but did not inform the Mojave County Superior Court of the findings in the area. “She should have warned the court, given the fact that she was supposed to be in a neutral position. [But] The case was dismissed on December 23 after Hobbes’ attorneys failed to disclose this information to the court,” Wright said.

At the time of Hamade’s December trial, Wright was working under then-Attorney General Mark Brnovic and was not a member of the Republican candidate’s legal team.

Hamade and the RNC echoed Wright’s allegations in the lawsuit, stating that Hobbes “knew of these material discrepancies by December 21 at the latest — 8 days before she revealed the results to the contestants and the public” (emphasis in original). Votebeat Arizona is like your local news outlet. Confirmed The allegations were “first said” by county officials last week, reports [Hobbs’] Office on error in results on Dec. 7, more than two weeks after the county authorized the election.

When pressured by the outlet as to why Hobbes refused to share such information in court proceedings regarding election results, the governor’s representative claimed it was due to a “no-verbal order.”

In addition to the underrepresentation, Hamade and the RNC are also fighting over issues related to provisional voting. A provisional ballot is used to record a vote when it is unclear whether an individual is eligible to vote. Hamade’s legal team filed a request for public records related to these ballots with Maricopa County late last year, and Maricopa County responded on Dec. 31, Wright said. Hamade’s team was not provided with the ballots themselves, but they would be able to see which voters cast provisional ballots. However, we do not have information about who each voter voted for.

After analyzing the data obtained, Hamade’s team determined: [rejection of] provisional ballot [was] According to Wright, it doesn’t follow the usual pattern we see in elections.”

“Usually provisional ballots are cast by people who have never voted before. They have never voted in Arizona. They don’t realize they were supposed to register by a certain date.” says Wright. However, Hamade’s legal team found that “hundreds of people in Maricopa County … were denied ballots for not being registered despite having voting history.”

Hamade expanded the issue to The Federalist, whose legal team reviewed the data and found that “these people’s party registrations” were “two to one, sometimes three to one,” with Republican supporters outnumbering them. claimed there were many.

“It’s not just the numbers of Republicans that we’re discovering. [marked as having voted provisionally], [but how] Many of these voters are highly inclined voters,” Hamade said. “Some people voted in the 2022 primary, some people voted in 2020, some people voted in 2018. So there are a lot of voters who were provisionally voted for one reason or another. “

arizona free news analysis Published last month, it claims about 8,000 provisional ballots are outstanding.

road ahead

Although the outcome of Hamade’s election challenge remains uncertain, it is not unheard of for courts to determine another winner months after the election. , Republican Thomas E. Campbell was first declared the winner, appearing to win by 30 votes over Democrat George WP Hunt.Campbell said he served as governor for nearly a year, but eventually the Arizona courts Settlement It was a legal dispute over a “split-ticket voting quirk” and Hunt was declared the winner.

When asked about his prospects in Arizona’s judicial system, Hamade said his team was ultimately victorious and, when it comes to their mantra of “every vote counts,” due to their hypocrisy. He expressed optimism that he would blow up Democrats.

“In our lawsuit, we are taking the Democratic stance of ‘every vote counts’ and talking about disenfranchising voters. [how] All votes were counted,” Hamade said. “In our case, we are not claiming fraud. …We are simply saying that they need to count these legitimate votes. I think it’s a lot easier to count the votes than it is to try to take them down, and that’s why we’re using the Democratic Party’s playbook and I think we’re going to have more success.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He has also served as his writer for state content for the Convention of States Action, and his work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood