A Wednesday hearing has been scheduled for a judge 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.
The party wants the sample measured on a precinct level, rather than among the county’s new vote centers, which let people vote at any location across the county.
The county is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the audit has already been completed, the GOP waited too long to file their challenge and warned it would be time consuming to open bags of ballots to figure out the precincts in which they were cast.
While Maricopa County faces a Nov. 23 deadline for certifying its elections results, GOP lawyers argue the certification could be postponed until its issues are resolved.
Maricopa County plans to certify its results on Thursday or Friday.
In a separate case in Maricopa County, a judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday in a lawsuit that asks a court to let one voter recast her ballot after she said a tabulator rejected it on Election day and poll workers denied her request for another ballot.
The legal challenge was filed by the lawyers who had previously filed the now-dismissed #Sharpiegate lawsuit. It has two of the plaintiffs from the old suit and emphasizes markers far less than the earlier Sharpiegate lawsuit.
Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
