PHOENIX β Maricopa Countyβs attorney is accusing Republican state senators of demanding access to voting equipment and records to turn them over to a lawyer for President Trump.
At a hearing Monday, Steve Tully, attorney for the county, pointed out that Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, sent out a Twitter message last month saying the materials sought by the Senate were going to be given to Rudy Giuliani.
Tully said those would include ballots and passwords and other materials in the two subpoenas issued by Senate President Karen Fann and Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Giuliani, in turn, is quoted as saying he wants to βstart forensically examining the voting machines in Arizona,β part of his efforts to question Joe Bidenβs victory and deny the Democrat Arizonaβs 11 electoral votes.
Tully told a Maricopa County judge that if that is the plan, it provides another reason for his client to refuse to turn over the requested information. He said it would violate both the state and federal constitutions and be an βimproper legislative purpose.β
He also said the county has questions about whether the review the senators want of the equipment and voting materials will be conducted by people who are legally certified.
But attorney Kory Langhofer, who is representing the senators, told Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason to ignore those objections as βlegally irrelevant.β
βThat is not the countyβs concern,β he said.
Langhofer said the only issue for the judge to decide is whether the Legislature is entitled to demand the documents and whether Thomason will enforce that subpoena.
What happens once the materials are in the hands of lawmakers β lawfully, Langhofer contends β is strictly a legislative concern, he said.
Farnsworth, who was not at Mondayβs hearing, later told Capitol Media Services that the whole purpose of the subpoenas is so legislators, who he said have absolute authority over elections, can examine the materials and determine if the results reported were accurate.
He also said what lawmakers learn from their review could form the basis for proposed changes in state laws on how future elections are conducted.
βThis issue thatβs in court is not being coordinated at all with anybody on the outside, AZGOP, the Trump campaign or anyone else,β Farnsworth said.
But the senator acknowledged that the Trump campaign β and in fact, everyone else β will be entitled to whatever final report is issued by his committee, as that likely will be a public record.
It wonβt, however, be Farnsworth who presides over issuing that report.
His term as a legislator ends at noon this coming Monday. At that point, current Rep. Warren Petersen moves to the Senate and becomes chair of the Judiciary Committee.
And Thomason has scheduled the next hearing for the middle of next week.
But even with a revamped panel, the legal fight over the Legislatureβs access remains.
The subpoenas issued last month demand access to copies of all of the early ballots cast in Maricopa County in the Nov. 3 general election, and for access to the equipment used to tabulate those ballots and the software that runs the equipment.
The county chose to sue rather than comply amid stated concerns that what was being demanded would expose private information on voters. They also raised questions about whether the county has the legal right to give that information to outsiders.
On Monday, Langhofer told Thomason: βThis lawsuit is an effort to delay compliance with a validly issued subpoena.β He said Tully wants another week to respond to the legal briefs.
βMeanwhile, they know the clock is ticking,β Langhofer said. He said Tully, a former lawmaker himself, is aware that the new legislative session begins Monday and that there already are multiple bills filed seeking to make changes in election laws and procedures.
On top of that is the fact that Congress meets on Wednesday, Jan. 6, to count the electoral votes with the threat by some federal lawmakers of not including the votes from Arizona amid questions of accuracy.
Thomason said he is aware of the time constraints. But he also said Tully is entitled to time not only to respond to the Senateβs latest filings but also to efforts by other parties to intervene in the case.
Photos: 2020 General Election in Pima County and Arizona
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Judge throws out lawsuit, finds no fraud or misconduct in Arizona election
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PHOENIX β A judge tossed out a bid by the head of the Arizona Republican Party to void the election results that awarded the stateβs 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 Wardβs attorney reviewed 100 of those envelopes.
And at best, Warner said, that examiner found six signatures to be βinconclusive,β 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
Fridayβs 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.
βThere have been questions,β 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 leadersβ request for the inquiry alleges there are any βirregularitiesβ in the way the election was conducted.
βAt the very least, the confidence in our electoral system has been shaken because of a lot of claims and allegations,β Fann said. βSo our No. 1 goal is to restore the confidence of our voters.β
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.
βThe rule of law forbids us to do that,β he said.
In fact, Bowers pointed out, it was the Republican-controlled Legislature that enacted a law three years ago specifically requiring the stateβs electors βto cast their votes for the candidates who received the most votes in the official statewide canvass.β
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 stateβs 11 electoral votes for Trump, who won Arizonaβs race that year.
βAs a conservative Republican, I donβt like the results of the presidential election,β Bowers said in a prepared statement. βBut I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.β