Thursday, November 8, 2018

BREAKING: Arizona Democrats Fire Back, File The 2nd Complaint Against Maricopa County Recorder

UPDATE, 6PM: We have received and are posting below the Complaint filed by the Arizona Democratic Party. It is a public records suit asking for information on any "conditional provisional ballots" cast on Tuesday, and for lists of those early or provisional ballots where the signatures did not match. The request was made one week before Election Day and the Recorder's Office had promised to provide the information immediately after the polls closed.

As the Republicans and the County Recorders discussed in today's hearing in the other case, the deadline for voters to cure any defects in their ballots is next Wednesday. Both parties are requesting the information so that they can assist their party members in ensuring that their ballots are counted.

Keely Varvel, the Chief Deputy Recorder for Maricopa County, tells Arizona's Politics that the lists are not yet ready and will be provided to both parties as soon as it is.

The Arizona Democratic Party has fired the 2nd shot today in the legal battle over counting ballots in the tightly-contested #AZSen (and, other) race. The new lawsuit is only against the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, where the vast majority of yet-uncounted ballots (and the

Arizona's Politics has not yet received responses from the parties or the court about the specific
subject of the new complaint, but it follows yesterday afternoon's lawsuit filed by Arizona Republicans. The GOP is trying to prevent Maricopa, Pima, and Apache counties from reaching out to voters who signed their early ballot outer envelopes in a way that does not match voter registration records.

The Republican lawsuit had its initial hearing in court this morning. Superior Court Judge Margaret Mahoney emphatically rejected the plaintiffs' effort to order the counties to segregate any ballots that may be subject to the suit. Daniel Jurkowitz argued that state statutes would not permit the ballots to be kept with the identifying envelopes once the signature is verified indicating that it is a legitimately mailed (or, dropped off) ballot.

Jurkowitz also indicated that the Pima County Recorder has moved to dismiss the GOP lawsuit.

The Arizona Republican Party is attempting to intervene in the initial lawsuit, and its attorney (Kory Langhofer) is also trying to intervene on  behalf of the Arizona Public Integrity Alliance - a group that does not disclose its financial backing.  Other parties attempting to intervene are the Arizona Democratic Party and the League of Latin American Citizens and the American Civil Liberties Union. (The latter two working together.)

The U.S. Senate race is still too close to call, with Rep. Martha McSally (R-CD2) currently leading Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-CD9) by less than 17,000 votes (out of 1.75M cast). Several hundred thousand ballots are still being verified and counted.





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