PHOENIX β State GOP chief Kelli Ward is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to void federal laws that set Mondayβs deadline for the vote of the Electoral College.
In a last-ditch effort to salvage her case, attorney Jack Wilenchik argues that Ward was denied her legal right to inspect all the ballots cast in preparing her lawsuit claiming that President Trump really outpolled Joe Biden in Arizona.
Instead, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner permitted inspection of a random sample.
Warner, in limiting what Ward could review, pointed out that federal law required all legal disputes over the presidential election to be completed no later than this past Tuesday.
That is known as the βsafe harborβ deadline for resolving electoral issues.
And a separate statute says the electors pledged to the winning candidate cast their vote this coming Monday.
The sixth-ranked Arizona Wildcats women's basketball team routed rival Arizona State 65-37 Thursday night at McKale Center. Arizona has now won three straight over the Sun Devils for the first time since 1999-2000.
Warner threw out Wardβs lawsuit, finding no fraud or misconduct in the Arizona election. The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the trial judgeβs finding.
But Wilenchik, in his Friday filing, asks the high court to both void the federal deadlines and give Ward more time to prove her allegations that when all the ballots are examined the stateβs 11 electoral votes will go to Trump.
βWhere the state courts make a final determination of an action without affording the parties a proper opportunity to present evidence, they violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,β he said.
But for Wilenchik to win that point, he has to convince the nationβs high court that the federal laws on presidential elections β and, specifically, the deadlines they set β are themselves unconstitutional. And those laws have been on the books since at least 1887.
He argues that the only actual deadline federal law can enforce is the one on Jan. 6, the day that Congress meets to count the electoral votes.
Photographer Kelly Presnell's Fave Five of 2020
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