PHOENIX — Arizona’s Republican attorney general is seeking a voice in the lawsuit Texas has brought against four other states won by Democrat Joe Biden.
But Attorney General Mark Brnovich isn’t siding with Texas or against it.
In legal papers filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, Brnovich said he wants to file a brief to argue the importance of “election integrity.”
What’s telling, though, is that Brnovich is not joining with 17 other Republican attorneys general who filed their own brief with the Supreme Court siding with Texas.
They are asking the justices to back Texas in its bid to block a final vote by the Electoral College while the court considers allegations that illegal changes in laws in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin created opportunity for fraud, though no actual instances of fraud are alleged.
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Instead, Brnovich aide Ryan Anderson said his boss wants to ensure that any ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court about laws and rules that govern election laws do not undermine Arizona’s own regulations.
Anderson said as far as Brnovich is concerned, Arizona does elections right, which is why it wasn’t sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as were the four other states, where, as in Arizona, Biden won the popular vote.
Anderson left no question about what Brnovich thinks of how Arizona conducted the election. “The Arizona attorney general will not be advocating to overturn the election results in Arizona,” he said.
Brnovich does share one sentiment with his Texas counterpart, Anderson said. “We all agree that the integrity of our elections are important,” he said. “And there are too many Americans who do not trust the outcome of the election.”
But Anderson said Arizona’s interest in the legal fight is different than that of the other Republican attorneys general.
The lawsuit filed by Paxton charges that changes made this year to election procedures in the four battleground states, many due to the impact of the pandemic, are illegal. In essence, he said the changes, some enacted by courts, weakened ballot-integrity statutes.
Courts in each of those states have dismissed similar claims. But Paxton argues it is the responsibility of the nation’s highest court to intercede and declare that the procedures used in those four states were illegal and therefore the results should not be allowed to stand.
It’s not clear the Supreme Court will even consider the Texas petition. But Anderson said if the justices take it up, Brnovich wants to be sure that any ruling they issue respects the interests of Arizona: That it is the Legislature that has prime say over how elections are conducted, and not courts or officials of the executive branch.
That’s crucial, he said, because Arizona already has some of the laws that the Texas lawsuit says are lacking or were ignored elsewhere.
For example, Paxton complained that some states do not require that signatures on envelopes with early ballots be compared with records on file. Arizona requires matching of all envelopes received.
He also said that some states “flooded their citizenry with tens of millions of ballot applications and ballots,” ignoring normal controls. Arizona sends early ballots only to those who request them.
Anderson also said Brnovich fought off various efforts to allow last-minute changes in Arizona election laws, ranging from how county election officials must handle unsigned early ballots, to extending the deadline for people registering to vote.
Brnovich is not the only Arizona elected official weighing in at the Supreme Court.
Ten state representatives and three senators, all Republicans, joined with counterparts from Alaska and Idaho on Thursday in filing their own brief in support of Texas.
“An elite group of sitting Democrat officers in each of the defendant states coordinated with the Democrat party to illegally and unconstitutionally change the rules established by the legislature in the defendant states, thereby depriving the people of their states a free and fair election — the very basis of a republican form of government,” they contend through their attorneys.
The representatives are Nancy Barto, Frank Carroll, John Fillmore, Mark Finchem, Travis Granthan, Anthony Kern, David Livingston, Steve Pierce, Bret Roberts and Kelly Townsend. The senators are Sylvia Allen, Sonny Borrelli and David Gowan.
Photos: 2020 General Election in Pima County and Arizona
Ballot processing in Pima County
Ballot processing in Pima County
Ballot processing in Pima County
Ballot processing in Pima County
Ballot processing in PIma County
Ballot processing in PIma County
Ballot processing in PIma County
Ballot processing in PIma County
Ballot processing, Pima County
Ballot processing, Pima County
Ballot processing, Pima County
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election 2020 Senate Kelly
Election 2020 Senate Kelly
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election 2020 Arizona Voting
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Election Day, Pima County and Arizona, 2020
Judge throws out lawsuit, finds no fraud or misconduct in Arizona election
PHOENIX — A judge tossed out a bid by the head of the Arizona Republican Party to void the election results that awarded the state’s 11 electoral votes to Democrat Joe Biden.
The two days of testimony produced in the case brought by GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward produced no evidence of fraud or misconduct in how the vote was conducted in Maricopa County, said Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner in his Friday ruling.
Warner acknowledged that there were some human errors made when ballots that could not be read by machines due to marks or other problems were duplicated by hand.
But he said that a random sample of those duplicated ballots showed an accuracy rate of 99.45%.
Warner said there was no evidence that the error rate, even if extrapolated to all the 27,869 duplicated ballots, would change the fact that Biden beat President Trump.
The judge also threw out charges that there were illegal votes based on claims that the signatures on the envelopes containing early ballots were not properly compared with those already on file.
He pointed out that a forensic document examiner hired by Ward’s attorney reviewed 100 of those envelopes.
And at best, Warner said, that examiner found six signatures to be “inconclusive,” meaning she could not testify that they were a match to the signature on file.
But the judge said this witness found no signs of forgery.
Finally, Warner said, there was no evidence that the vote count was erroneous. So he issued an order confirming the Arizona election, which Biden won with a 10,457-vote edge over Trump.
Federal court case remains to be heard
Friday’s ruling, however, is not the last word.
Ward, in anticipation of the case going against her, already had announced she plans to seek review by the Arizona Supreme Court.
And a separate lawsuit is playing out in federal court, which includes some of the same claims made here along with allegations of fraud and conspiracy.
That case, set for a hearing Tuesday, also seeks to void the results of the presidential contest.
It includes allegations that the Dominion Software voting equipment used by Maricopa County is unreliable and was programmed to register more votes for Biden than he actually got.
Legislative leaders call for audit but not to change election results
Along the same lines, Senate President Karen Fann and House Speaker Rusty Bowers on Friday called for an independent audit of the software and equipment used by Maricopa County in the just-completed election.
“There have been questions,” Fann said.
But she told Capitol Media Services it is not their intent to use whatever is found to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election.
In fact, she said nothing in the Republican legislative leaders’ request for the inquiry alleges there are any “irregularities” in the way the election was conducted.
“At the very least, the confidence in our electoral system has been shaken because of a lot of claims and allegations,” Fann said. “So our No. 1 goal is to restore the confidence of our voters.”
Bowers specifically rejected calls by the Trump legal team that the Legislature come into session to void the election results, which were formally certified on Monday.
“The rule of law forbids us to do that,” he said.
In fact, Bowers pointed out, it was the Republican-controlled Legislature that enacted a law three years ago specifically requiring the state’s electors “to cast their votes for the candidates who received the most votes in the official statewide canvass.”
He said that was done because Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote nationwide in 2016 and some lawmakers feared that electors would refuse to cast the state’s 11 electoral votes for Trump, who won Arizona’s race that year.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election,” Bowers said in a prepared statement. “But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
Photos of the 2020 General Election voting, election night and ballot processing in Pima County, Maricopa County and throughout Arizona.