Arizona’s Cochise County election results ordered to be certified : NPR

An Arizona judge orders officials in Republican-controlled Cochise County to prove the results of local midterm elections after they missed the state’s legal deadline and endangered more than 47,000 voters. I was.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley, who ruled from the bench at Thursday’s court hearing, ordered the county board of oversight to meet by 5 p.m. Thursday to make the results official.

The court order came three days after two Republicans on the board voted not to certify the results of the vote on Monday.

The move has sparked multiple lawsuits, including one by the state secretary of state, who was awaiting county results to proceed with statewide certification, which is legally required to take place next week.

“I’ve had enough. I think the public has had enough,” said Democratic Party chairman Anne English, who backed certifying the election results and called on judges for a “quick solution.”

Judge said the law was ‘clear’

Citing state law, McGinley said the board was “obliged” to certify the results and submit them to the Secretary of State by Monday, given that no results were missing in the county total. He said it was “obvious”.

McGinley said the board “exceeded its legal authority to delay the canvas for reasons not permitted by law.”

Republican county superintendents Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd had argued that they wanted to delay certification over concerns about election equipment in counties that state officials had confirmed had been tested and properly certified.

But at Thursday’s hearing, attorneys representing challengers in another lawsuit filed against the board by the nonprofit Arizona Alliance for Retired American and voters in Cochise County said they were Crosby and suggested it was a malicious allegation by Judd. Lawyers referred to comments made by Judd new york times Claims about the voting machine issue are “the only thing we have to stand for” as cover for delaying certification to protest local certification of results in Maricopa County, Arizona.

There were no attorneys representing the board in court on Thursday. The board only approved the law firm’s selection at the last minute, two hours before his hearing on Thursday.

Crosby tried to ask the judge to postpone the case until next week to give his newly hired lawyer time to catch up on the case, but McGinley decided that waiting was “not in the good interest of justice.” I refused the request.

Arizona’s executive director has asked counties to complete certification by Thursday to avoid further delays in preparing the statewide certification of midterm election results. State officials have warned that tens of thousands of county votes may be excluded from official results if they are not certified by the commission in time.