Cochise County, Arizona, is now the only U. S. county that has so far refused to certify the effects of its midterm elections, prompting lawsuits and a potential threat to the narrow majority of Republicans in the House. if the rate is not replenished and does not approve the effects of the election. At one point vote on Friday.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted overwhelmingly for Republicans in state races, but refused to certify the county’s effects Monday in a 2-to-1 vote, which a council member told The New York Times primarily as an act of protest against alleged voting issues. In Maricopa County, Arizona, those claims have been debunked.
Arizona Secretary of State and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs (D) sued the county Monday in an effort to force certification, after Cochise County missed the state’s required deadline to certify the county’s effects and send them to the state.
The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and the county electorate also filed a lawsuit for refusing to certify, and a voter filed a complaint Wednesday with the county threatening a class-action lawsuit if necessary.
The council plans to hold a momentary assembly to vote on certification at 10:00 a. m. M. local time on Friday and talk about alleged electoral matters, and if you do not voluntarily certify the effects at that time, the courts will most likely force them. a, as happened in a separate case in New Mexico, the midterm primaries.
If the county’s effects are not qualified until Hobbs is required to certify statewide effects, which is scheduled for Monday but will have to take a position no later than Dec. 8, the official state vote overall won’t come with roughly 47,000 votes cast in Cochise County.
Excluding the county from voting would change the electoral effects for Arizona’s sixth congressional district from Republican to Democratic: Republican candidate Juan Ciscomani got just 5232 votes, as well as a race for the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Bloomberg notes.
The Cochise County Council has struggled to find an attorney willing to incorporate the county in lawsuits opposing its refusal to certify, local media outlet 12 News reported Wednesday. Election audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 results, they were later told that Blehm had rejected an offer to incorporate them.
If Cochise County officials will face consequences for refusing to certify. A former Arizona attorney general and Maricopa County prosecutor sent a letter to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Cochise County District Attorney Brian McIntyre, urging them to file charges for thieves opposing the two Republican county officials. who delayed certification. The former prosecutors argued that this violated state legislation requiring certification of electoral effects and prohibited interference with upcoming election legislation, the latter being a crime. Brnovich, a Republican, has not yet indicated whether the state will file a complaint.
Certification of electoral effects, while sometimes a regime procedure, has become more crowded in the past two years, as former President Donald Trump pushed unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. installed among his base and led to further distrust of benign electoral practices. Officials in Wayne County, Michigan briefly refused to certify its 2020 effects for a few hours before backing down, and Otero County, New Mexico, refused to certify its key effects earlier. this year before being forced to do so in court. Cochise County is one of several counties where certification was a fear in the November election, and officials in Mohave County, Arizona, also contemplated not verifying the effects, but ultimately certifying them. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was the only other county in which a state council refused to certify the effects because a council member abstained from voting after the country ran out of ballots that day. of the ballot The board, despite everything, qualified the effects at a time of voting on Wednesday. The Associated Press reports that some other Pennsylvania counties have also been delayed in reporting their qualified effects to the states amid calls for a Republican voter recount, but the councils in those counties have not explicitly refused to certify the effects. effects in the same manner as Cochise County.
In addition to Cochise County’s objection to Maricopa County’s election unrest, which did not prevent the county from certifying its vote count, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is also expected to file a lawsuit. a lawsuit challenging the county’s electoral effects in an effort to overturn Hobbs’ victory. Array Maricopa County drew midterm attention for disorder with vote tabulators, fueling allegations of alleged fraud, but there is no evidence for the claims and officials claim this did not happen. Save your electorate from voting through other methods. Lake’s lawsuit can only be filed after the state certifies its effects, and comes after Lake, who continually pushed baseless allegations of voter fraud, lost to Hobbs by 17,116 votes. According to similar lawsuits filed after the 2020 election questioning effects based on alleged voter fraud, which were unsuccessful at all, Lake’s efforts are unlikely to adjust the effects.
Arizona County’s refusal to certify the effects of the election could cost the Republican Party a seat in the House (Bloomberg)
Election certification takes little time, a “test” for 2024 (Associated Press)
Cochise County Can’t Locate Attorney to Protect Itself from Lawsuit for Refusing to Certify Election (12 News)
Cochise County Board of Supervisors Votes to Delay Certification of Election Effects (Republic of Arizona)
‘This madness will have to stop’: Former prosecutors filed charges against Cochise County supervisors (Republic of Arizona)