Judge in Cochise County dismisses election lawsuit related to jail tax
A judge in a rural southern Arizona county that has become a hotbed for election denial has stopped an effort to overturn the results of a recent jail-related vote.
A Cochise County Superior Court judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit that wanted a May special election for the creation of a tax district to be declared “null and void,” according to court documents.
The tax district measure, which will help fund a new jail with a half-cent tax for 25 years, passed with 52% of the vote.
The voters who tried to contest the election in court alleged the county's elections board had no authority to organize the election because the board was appointed in 2022 and not 2023. Therefore, they argued, the votes cast were "illegal."
Judge David Thorn failed to find any misconduct by the board, or that any of the votes were illegal.
“There is no reasonable inference ... by which one could draw the conclusion that the votes cast in the 2023 Cochise County Jail Tax Election were ‘illegal,’” Thorn said in his decision.
Thorn said illegal votes include votes cast by voters who are ineligible to vote, not registered to vote, those who vote in a partisan election when they are in a different political party, and fraudulent votes.
He also noted that an election challenge to the process of an election must occur before the election.
“The way an election is conducted must be challenged before the election occurs and not after,” Thorn said in his ruling.
He also said an argument claiming there was an insufficient number of votes to carry the measure “failed” because a provision of the Arizona Constitution that requires a 60% threshold for new voter-approved taxes does not apply to taxes that are not statewide.
Thorn denied the contesters' request to inspect the ballots, as well as a demand for sanctions against the Cochise County Attorney’s Office and a request that all records related to the jail tax election be preserved beyond the time period outlined in the county’s document retention policy.
Cochise County made headlines for efforts to hand count all the ballots from the 2022 general election despite a prohibition on doing so from the courts. Earlier this year, the county's elections director quit citing a toxic work environment.
Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com. The Republic’s coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Judge in Cochise County dismisses election lawsuit related to jail tax
