On Tuesday night, the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by state Republican Party (GOP) Chairwoman Kelli Ward challenging the election results in the state, upholding a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit. The state Supreme Court judge said the plaintiffs had not presented evidence of misconduct or illegal voting. Ward said the ruling was “disappointing.
A Maricopa County judge on Dec. 4 dismissed Ward’s lawsuit, ruling that her petition failed to prove that any fraud occurred when she tried to challenge the county’s election results.
Ward said the petition asked the court to review 28,000 duplicate ballots in Maricopa County, as well as electronically adjudicated ballots (digitally adjudicated ballots). She estimated that more than 100,000 ballots were at stake.
State Supreme Court justices on Tuesday denied a request to inspect more ballots, citing case law. That law concludes that the validity of an election is not invalidated by an unintentional error or oversight.
In an order, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel wrote, “An election is not invalidated by mere irregularities unless it can be shown that the results were affected by such irregularities.”
“The validity of an election is not invalidated by unintentional errors or oversights unless they affect the result or at least make the result uncertain.”
Maricopa County is the most populous county in Arizona. According to state election data, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won more than 45,000 votes in the county. In the state as a whole, Biden leads Trump by about 10,457 votes.
Ward said Monday that Maricopa County had an unusual rejection rate for mail-in ballots, with only 600 out of nearly 2 million absentee or early ballots rejected because of mismatched signatures.
Her lawsuit says the number of duplicate ballots was unusually high in some suburban areas on the southeastern edge of Maricopa County, where election results were “grossly inconsistent” with voter registration and historical voting data. The lawsuit also alleges that the software used to process such ballots “pre-filled” Biden’s name on the ballots more frequently than “pre-filled” Trump’s. The lawsuit alleges that the software used to process such ballots “pre-filled” Biden’s name on the ballots more frequently than “pre-filled” Trump’s name.
Her lawsuit prompted a court-ordered inspection of more than 1,600 ballots. She then asked the state Supreme Court for permission to inspect more ballots.
A court-ordered sample of about 1,626 duplicate ballots was examined and nine errors were found. If corrected, it would have given Trump seven votes and Biden two votes. Extending that error rate to the 27,869 duplicate ballots in the county, Brutinell wrote, calculates that Trump may have lost between 103 and 153 votes in the county, “which is not enough to call the election results into question.”
Ward released a statement on the court’s ruling saying, “It is disappointing that the court did not allow us to go behind the scenes to examine the additional materials for similar errors. From this material, we can find evidence of statistically significant human error in a very short period of time. Then the question remains. If such relevant information is inexcusably withheld from the voting public, how can they have confidence in our elections?”
She added, “While we may never know, with complete certainty, the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is clear: Arizona voters and their confidence in the transparency and accuracy of elections.”
“While today’s decision is not sought by those who value and recognize the importance of election transparency and integrity, rest assured (we) will continue to fight to restore eroded confidence,”
Ward’s attorney, Jack Wilenchik, said they are “evaluating” options for an appeal.
Arizona’s presidential election results were certified on Nov. 30. The state has 11 electoral votes.
The electoral college is scheduled to vote on Dec. 14 to determine the outcome of the election. A joint session of Congress on January 6 of next year will count these electoral votes and officially declare the winner of the presidential election.
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