U.S. Rep. Raรบl Grijalva cruised to re-election, knocking off political newcomer Daniel Wood in the race to represent Arizonaโs Congressional District 3.
Grijalva, 72, a Democrat, had already built a big lead toward securing his 10th congressional term by garnering 67% of the first roughly 200,000 votes, as of 10 p.m., according to results released Tuesday night. The Associated Press called the race at 8:35 p.m.
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Grijalva has represented the district, which includes the western part of Tucson and extends to the U.S.-Mexico and Arizona-California borders, since 2003. Heโs a staunch opponent of President Donald Trump and construction of a border wall, and has served as the chair of the Natural Resources Committee since 2019.
He won his re-election bid just two months after testing positive for the coronavirus after flying from Arizona to Washington, D.C., to attend a hearing about the clearing of Black Lives Matters protesters by Trump from Lafayette Park on June 1. He has since recovered, but has acknowledged lingering effects.
Wood, 42, a Trump-aligned Iraq War veteran and former police officer, faced an uphill battle in unseating Grijalva. He raised just $35,000 compared to Grijalvaโs $774,000. He lives in Maricopa in the Phoenix Metropolitan area, although federal candidates are not required to live in the district they run in. He was criticized for promoting QAnon-linked conspiracies about the coronavirus.
Photos: 2020 General Election in Pima County and Arizona
Ballot processing in Pima County
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UpdatedJudge throws out lawsuit, finds no fraud or misconduct in Arizona election
UpdatedPHOENIX โ A judge tossed out a bid by the head of the Arizona Republican Party to void the election results that awarded the stateโs 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 Wardโs attorney reviewed 100 of those envelopes.
And at best, Warner said, that examiner found six signatures to be โinconclusive,โ 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
Fridayโs 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.
โThere have been questions,โ 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 leadersโ request for the inquiry alleges there are any โirregularitiesโ in the way the election was conducted.
โAt the very least, the confidence in our electoral system has been shaken because of a lot of claims and allegations,โ Fann said. โSo our No. 1 goal is to restore the confidence of our voters.โ
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.
โThe rule of law forbids us to do that,โ he said.
In fact, Bowers pointed out, it was the Republican-controlled Legislature that enacted a law three years ago specifically requiring the stateโs electors โto cast their votes for the candidates who received the most votes in the official statewide canvass.โ
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 stateโs 11 electoral votes for Trump, who won Arizonaโs race that year.
โAs a conservative Republican, I donโt like the results of the presidential election,โ Bowers said in a prepared statement. โBut I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.โ
Photos of the 2020 General Election voting, election night and ballot processing in Pima County, Maricopa County and throughout Arizona.