PHOENIX — Three Republicans who lost their 2022 election bids will finally have their cases looked at by the Arizona Supreme Court — the day after the 2024 election.
That’s the day the justices will have a closed-door conference on 31 pending requests by a variety of plaintiffs who lost at lower-court levels and asked the high court to take a last look.
On that list are bids by Kari Lake, who lost the race for governor, Abe Hamadeh, who lost the attorney general’s race, and Mark Finchem, who was unsuccessful in the secretary of state’s race.
Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer told Capitol Media Services there is nothing nefarious about the scheduling. She said there was no effort by the court to have the issues in the 2022 races decided before Nov. 5 — the day that all three of the Republicans are now running for different offices.
In fact, Timmer said if the challengers are unhappy with what they consider a delay, they have only themselves to blame.
She said there is a procedure for lawyers who need a more immediate decision than the normal course of appeals to seek accelerated appeal.
“I assume they’ve got very good attorneys, attorneys that know what they’re doing,’’ Timmer said. “They know our process. Had they felt the need to accelerate it and to bring it to our attention they could have done it. And they didn’t.’’
None of the failed 2022 candidates returned calls Monday seeking comment.
But a spokeswoman for Hamadeh previously claimed the justices have “slow walked’’ this case.
“At no point has the court given any indication they have the urgency to see the closest race in Arizona history get litigated,’’ said Erica Knight. The final tally showed Hamadeh losing the attorney general’s race to Democrat Kris Mayes by 280 votes.
While this case is pending, Hamadeh is running for the U.S. House as the Republican nominee in Congressional District 8.
Hamadeh’s current case awaiting Supreme Court review — he has another at the Court of Appeals — is built around the contention that Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen improperly denied him more time to find evidence of what he claimed were issues with the 2022 race.
When Hamadeh did find some of what he was seeking, Jantzen denied his bid for a new trial. And the Court of Appeals, in declining to overturn Jantzen’s decision, said Hamadeh failed to show how any of that might have changed the outcome of the race.
The claims by Lake, who is now mounting a bid for U.S. Senate, are similar but not identical.
Kari Lake is pictured.
She wants the justices to give her the chance to present what she claims is “new evidence’’ about the extent of the failure of tabulators used on Election Day two years ago.
Those claims cover everything from an alleged failure to conduct legally required “logic and accuracy’’ testing on tabulating machines, to allegations Maricopa County had advance notice tabulators at vote centers would reject ballots on Election Day.
That, in turn, goes to her arguments that would-be voters, frustrated by long lines, left without casting ballots. Lake conjectures a majority of those discouraged voters were Republicans and would have voted for her. She lost by 17,117 votes to Democrat Katie Hobbs.
The issue Finchem has before the Supreme Court is different.
Finchem, now a candidate for Arizona Senate from the Prescott area, long ago gave up trying to overturn his loss in the secretary of state’s race to Democrat Adrian Fontes.
Finchem lost by more than 120,000 votes. A trial judge said even if his claims about machine malfunctions were valid — the same ones alleged by Lake — it doesn’t matter because there was no way he could make up the vote difference.
What that leaves for the Supreme Court to decide is whether Finchem and his attorneys must pay the $47,000 in legal fees run up by Fontes in defending against the lawsuit.
Appellate Judge Samuel Thumma said the record shows there were no grounds for Finchem to file the lawsuit in the first place.
He also said it ran afoul of provisions that bar cases from being filed unless there is a “good faith belief’’ in a legal basis.
Timmer, in her interview Monday with Capitol Media Services, said none of the legal issues — or the fact the cases involve people who are again candidates — played a role in scheduling.
She acknowledged the cases have been awaiting action for awhile. The last filings in the Hamadeh cases go back to June 18; for Finchem and Lake the docket was last active in August.
But Timmer said some other among the 31 cases scheduled for the Nov. 6 conference go back even farther. And she said there was nothing special done in the three election cases.
“However, anyone that is certainly, I want to say, conspiracy minded or just disbelieving that people act according to a process and without any ill intent, people are going to see what they see,’’ she said. Timmer said the fact all three election cases wound up on the Nov. 6 conference is “coincidental.’’
It occurred, she said, because the staff attorneys, whom she said are in short supply and overworked, simply put the calendar together that way.
Still, the chief justice said she might have interceded to advance the high-interest cases. “Had I seen it, I probably would have done just that,’’ Timmer said. “But it wasn’t brought to my attention. And I can take the blame for that.’’
