On November 18, a judge is set to hear arguments in the Arizona Republican Party’s lawsuit seeking to change how Maricopa County conducts a hand-count audit of a sampling of ballots as a quality control measure. According to FoxNews 10, Republicans want the sample measured on a precinct level rather than among the county’s new vote centers. New voting centers allowed people to vote at any location across the county.
The county will seek to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the audit has already been done, and the GOP waited too long to challenge it. Additionally, another audit would be time-consuming.
While Maricopa County is planning on certifying results Thursday or Friday, the deadline to certify the election is November 23. However, GOP lawyers argue the certification should be postponed until its issues are resolved.
While the GOP continues to fight for auditing, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office claims very few complaints came in concerning the election. According to a 3 On Your Side report, Arizona voters filed 187 complaints about early ballots and incidents at polling places. Considering there were 3.4 million votes cast, that number is a fraction of a percent.
Tammy Patrick, the senior advisor of elections for the non-partisan Democracy Fund, stated, “I think when we look at how many voters participated in this election, the number of complaints is relatively small. But really, any complaint is too many complaints.”
Printer problems, a handful of Sharpie concerns, a frustrated citizen who had volunteered to be a poll worker, and several complaints about electioneering near polling places were part of the list of complaints according to the investigation.
Patrick continued, “In all of these cases, when a complaint comes in, they all have to be investigated to make sure there isn’t any form of malfeasance,” Patrick said. “I’ve done those investigations on complaints just like this when I was in Arizona, and I will tell you, it was very rare that we had anything actually come to fruition of a situation that did violate the Help America Vote Act.”
Although Secretary of State Katie Hobbs wasn’t interviewed for the report, a statement was released by spokeswoman Sophia Solis. Solis stated, “Many of the issues we receive involve voter misinformation. In these situations, our office will provide the voter with accurate information about Arizona’s election process. The Secretary of State’s office takes voter intimidation very, very seriously. Running up to the election, we worked to prepare voters, law enforcement, and election workers.”
