Ballot inspection must take place for Arizona attorney general race, judge rules
At an emergency hearing held Thursday in Abe Hamadeh's election challenge, the judge ruled that ballot inspection must take place Thursday with three-person teams in three counties.
Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee F. Jantzen also denied the Republican attorney general candidate team access to Maricopa County's initial 2022 General Election Cast Vote Record and a request to push the trial until Tuesday.
The trial will take place as scheduled at 9 a.m. Friday. Hamadeh is trailing Democrat Kris Mayes by 511 votes in one of Arizona's closest statewide elections.
After the hearing, Hamadeh told The Arizona Republic: "Our race is the closest election in statewide history. I am fighting to make sure we count every legal vote. There are thousands of uncounted ballots and Maricopa County continues to obstruct my legal team’s effort to get to the bottom of who and why these ballots were rejected. Given the unacceptable issues that occurred in Maricopa County on Election Day it is reasonable for my team to question how certain ballots were counted. Arizona deserves to know who the legitimate winner of this race truly is."
Dan Barr, an attorney for Mayes, said: "We saw today that Hamadeh's case continues to have no factual support five weeks after the election, and we will continue to see that tomorrow."
Hamadeh requested an emergency hearing Wednesday after the plaintiffs could not agree with the defendants, which includes Mayes, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and various local officials, on the ballot inspection that was scheduled to take place that day.
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Hamadeh had sought two days for ballot inspection, while the defendants said only one was possible. The judge said the inspection will take place Thursday in Pima, Navajo, and Maricopa counties, even though the latter had originally said that inspection was impossible Thursday. Ultimately, Hamadeh will get less time to inspect the ballots than if it had happened Wednesday.
Jantzen denied Hamadeh's request for an unredacted CVR from Maricopa County, which is described in Wednesday's emergency hearing request as: "essentially a spreadsheet in which each row corresponds to a ballot that has been cast and each column indicates a voter’s choice on that ballot for each race." The judge found that it was not allowed under election statutes.
Hamadeh's attorneys had argued that CVRs are a crucial part of ballot inspection, an important tool to quickly find ballots that match their allegations in the initial election contest. The emergency request also contained a declaration from former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett attesting to the necessity of a CVR.
Maricopa County contended that there is a remote security risk with turning over an unredacted CVR, as it could compromise ballot secrecy. A lawyer for the county said that it is possible someone could reverse-engineer the CVR to match the identity of an individual with his or her voting choices.
The judge ruled in Hamadeh's favor that there could be a team of three people in each county inspecting the ballots. The defendants asserted that the same three people had to inspect all the ballots under election law.
Tara Kavaler is a politics reporter at The Arizona Republic. She can be reached by email at tara.kavaler@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @kavalertara.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Judge orders ballot inspection in Arizona attorney general race
