Abe Hamadeh, the GOP candidate who lost the race for Arizona attorney general by 511 votes according to the first vote tally, filed a new lawsuit challenging the election Friday.
The contest between him and Democrat Kris Mayes still faces a recount per state law due to the slim margin, and Hamadeh’s legal challenge seeks to eliminate some votes he asserts were illegally tallied and include others he claims were improperly left out of the official total.
The lawsuit specifically states that the candidate is not making claims of fraud or nefarious actions in the election, however. That stands in stark contrast to another election lawsuit filed Friday by Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Lake, who lost, makes claims of “intentional misconduct” related to problems at the polls.
“The Plaintiffs are not, by this lawsuit, alleging any fraud, manipulation or other intentional wrongdoing that would impugn the outcomes of the November 8, 2022, general election,” the introduction to Hamadeh’s complaint states. “Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to ensure that all lawfully cast votes are properly counted and that unlawfully cast votes are not counted.”
The 30-page complaint was filed in Mohave County Superior Court, and named as defendants Mayes, Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, as well as county officials from across the state who are collectively referred to as “County Defendants.”
Hamadeh filed the challenge along with the Republican National Committee, as he previously did with a similar action that was dismissed because the election results were not yet official. Also listed as plaintiffs are two Mohave County voters.
“Maricopa County faced unprecedented and unacceptable issues on Election Day. Arizonans deserved better,” Hamadeh said when announcing the legal action on Twitter.
“I’m not desperate to be a politician. I’m desperately worried about our country. Right now confidence in our elections are at an all time low due to the hubris and incompetence of election officials to not take legitimate election issues seriously.”
What Hamadeh’s lawsuit claims
Hamadeh and his attorney, Tim LaSota, make seven specific claims in the lawsuit:
- That Maricopa County officials inaccurately marked some people as having voted and thus prevented them from casting ballots.
- That Maricopa County prevented some people who could not prove their identity from casting provisional ballots.
- That county officials from across the state inaccurately tabulated voter preferences when duplicating ballots that machines couldn’t read.
- That the county defendants inaccurately tabulated voter preferences when adjudicating ballots.
- That county officials improperly accepted some early ballots when the signatures on the envelopes didn’t match signatures on file for those voters.
- That county officials improperly counted faintly marked ballots as undervotes.
- That county officials didn’t count some provisional ballots because their voter lists were not properly maintained.
The first allegation deals with the well-documented printer problems at polling sites in Maricopa County on Election Day. The printers at many sites were not producing ballots with dark enough markings to be read by the tabulators, leaving voters with other options.
The simplest was that they could leave their ballot in something called “door 3,” a secure box where ballots are kept so workers can tabulate them elsewhere. About 17,000 ballots were submitted this way, though not all because of the printer problems.
The issues could have affected as many as 30% of polling sites and about 6% of the total Election Day ballots cast.
But if voters wanted to either go to another polling site or to instead cast an early ballot they had received in the mail, they had to “check out” of the first polling site where they tried to cast a ballot. The lawsuit asserts poll workers were either not trained or inadequately trained on how to check people out, which lead to them going elsewhere to cast provisional ballots or to turn in early ballots that were then not counted.
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The lawsuit claims 126 people cast provisional ballots that weren’t counted because of this problem, and another 269 people submitted early ballots that weren’t counted, for a total of 395. It also claims a “material number” of voters were denied the chance to even cast provisional ballots later in the day because of this issue.
The lawsuit asks the court to make several orders, including one “abating the recount of votes” and also for Maricopa County to tabulate all provisional and early ballots turned in by people who checked in at a polling center but didn’t cast a ballot there.
It also seeks an order to let voters who couldn’t cast ballots because they weren’t checked out of a polling site to do so. And it seeks orders for counties to amend their election results to correct tabulation errors for ballots that were not ready by machines or were adjudicated, though it doesn’t propose how.
It also asks the court to declare him the winner.
Mayes’ attorney: ‘There are no facts’ in lawsuit
Dan Barr, an attorney representing Mayes, said the new filing was similar to Hamadeh’s previous action that was dismissed, though it was filed by different lawyers in a different venue.
“This time they filed in in Mohave County strangely, even though pretty much everybody and all the documents that have to do with this case are in Maricopa County,” Barr said.
He said he expects a judge to dismiss the case because the arguments don’t show that there are enough votes at stake for Hamadeh to change the outcome of the election.
“It is all based on information and belief,” he said. “There are no facts. It’s like, we believe this may have happened. They can’t point to, importantly, they can’t show the results would have shifted by over 511 votes to have Hamadeh be the winner.”
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The lawsuit comes after protests in various counties urging supervisors to not certify their election results. A spokesman for Maricopa County officials said Friday a legal challenge was the proper venue to sort out election issues.
“The court system is the proper place for campaigns challenging the results to make their case,” Fields Moseley said in an email. “Maricopa County respects the election contest process and looks forward to sharing facts about the administration of the 2022 General Election and our work to ensure every legal voter had an opportunity to cast their ballot.”
Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.
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