PHOENIX β About a third of Republican state lawmakers are calling on newly reelected Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward to either agree to a recount of that vote or back off of her challenges to the presidential race.
In an email Wednesday to Ward, the 14 state representatives and four senators said they have been involved in a two-month effort to bring βtransparency and accountability in our election process.β
βThis included ballot security and integrity, comprehensive audits, and paper trails that allow the average voter to know that their vote counted and that the election results as presented were accurate,β they wrote. That followed the certified results that showed Joe Biden outpolled Donald Trump in Arizona by 10,457 votes.
At the same time, they noted, Ward won a new term as party chair by defeating Sergio Arellano, a Southern Arizona businessman and unsuccessful 2018 congressional candidate, by 42 votes.
She has refused his request for a recount, saying there was no procedure, process or rule that allows for that.
βAnd you certainly donβt allow a challenger who lost an election to demand something that they donβt have the right to, and we donβt have the responsibility for providing,β Ward said last month on KFYI.
The GOP lawmakers said thatβs subverting what theyβre trying to do.
βNow, our collective message is being undermined by your insistence that none of these standards should apply to your election as AZ GOP Chairman,β they wrote. βThis inconsistency is simply not acceptable.β
The lawmakers acknowledged that election of a party chief βpales in comparisonβ with a presidential election. βBut the principles that surround every election, no matter how big or small, must remain the same,β they wrote.
They are asking Ward to either allow an immediate audit of her Jan. 23 election or to remove herself from efforts to audit the Nov. 3 presidential election, βas you would be an unwelcome distraction and foil for the media to use to discredit our efforts to protect our stateβs voters.β
βI support transparency, free and fair elections in every corner of representation,β Rep. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley said . Finchem has been at the forefront of arguments that the Arizona presidential results were tainted and incorrect.
Sen. T.J. Shope of Coolidge said itβs a matter of βtrying to be consistent.β And he said thatβs not whatβs happening here.
βI come at it as a guy that doesnβt believe the βstop the stealβ stuff,β he said, referring to people who are convinced that Trump won Arizona. βAnd here we have somebody who is essentially leading the charge, and was former President Trumpβs lead surrogate essentially in Arizona, saying these things. And when her election comes up under question, auditing or anything like that is not even on the table.β
Rep. Shawnna Bolick of Phoenix said after the January GOP meeting was over it was brought to her attention that there were missed ballots from one county between the first and second rounds of voting.
βAn audit of the chairmanβs election would bring transparency to the process,β she said.
Peoria Rep. Ben Toma agreed.
βWe want transparency and an audit of the November election to ensure voter confidence and the same standard should apply to the GOP meeting,β he said.
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