PHOENIX — A judge won’t immediately block Attorney General Mark Brnovich from investigating, and potentially prosecuting, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs over her decision to temporarily take an online petition site offline.
In a ruling Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joan Sinclair said all Brnovich has done is send a letter to Hobbs saying that taking the E-Qual system offline would be “contrary to law.’’
The judge acknowledged the letter tells Hobbs that Arizona law makes it a crime, with potential fines and jail time, to knowingly fail or refuse to comply with state election laws.
But Sinclair said that, at least at this point, that’s just verbiage. Unless and until Brnovich does take action, she said, there is nothing for her to block.
Friday’s ruling is a setback for Hobbs, who had hoped Sinclair would order Brnovich to back off.
It leaves legally unresolved Hobbs’ contention that she is obligated to take the system offline on March 11 to perform what she said are necessary updates to account for the fact that the lines for legislative and congressional districts have been changed.
The judge did not rule on a separate request by Hobbs for a declaratory judgment that she is acting lawfully.
Hobbs “still intends to take the E-Qual system down on March 11, because that is when counties have indicated they will begin updating new district boundaries in the statewide voter registration system,’’ said her aide Murphy Hebert.
Brnovich also is not budging. “Arizona’s laws are not merely suggestions,’’ his aide Katie Conner said.
That means the case between the two officials with political aspirations — Hobbs hoping to be the Democratic nominee for governor and Brnovich to be the Republican nominee for U.S. senator — is likely going to wind up back before Sinclair.
The E-Qual system, approved a decade ago by the Legislature, allows candidates for federal and state offices to get the signatures they need on nominating papers online rather than having to collect them in person with pen and paper. E-Qual is considered secure because it is linked to voter information maintained by the state and counties.
But last month the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission approved new boundaries for the state’s 30 legislative and nine congressional districts. Those changes reflect population shifts and are designed to ensure that each district has roughly equal population.
The Legislature, recognizing the upcoming April 4 deadline for petition signatures, gave candidates permission to seek out names from both their old and new districts.
However, the E-Qual system accepts signatures only of people who live within a candidate’s district.
Hobbs said it cannot accommodate two different sets of maps. So she wants to take it down to allow counties to update their data to ensure people are signing only those petitions to which they are legally entitled.
Her plans would keep the system offline through the April 4 filing deadline. That becomes an issue for candidates who were hoping to finish the signature-gathering process online, though they remain free to continue with pen-and-paper efforts.
In the letter to Hobbs, a Brnovich aide cited statutes that say she must maintain the E-Qual system, with no exceptions. That’s where Hobbs was told failure to do so is at least a Class 3 misdemeanor, with up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine, and possibly a Class 6 felony which carries a year in state prison.
Hobbs’ response was to to file suit, characterizing the letter as “threatening’’ her with “unprecedented civil and criminal enforcement actions’’ for performing necessary maintenance on the system, and asking Sinclair to intercede. The judge, however, said the fact that Hobbs has not yet shut down E-Qual and Brnovich has not brought action against her leaves nothing to be decided.
