Too late for Hamadeh's challenge to 2022 election, judge says

The reason Republican Abe Hamadeh can’t get a do-over of his challenge to the 2022 election for attorney general is that his lawyers failed to timely investigate the issues, a judge said Monday.

And as far as the judge is concerned, it’s simply too late now.

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen said Hamadeh got a chance to present his case at a hearing in December that he, not Democrat Kris Mayes, should be declared the winner.

At that time, thousands of ballots were inspected, and Hamadeh offered only one witness, the judge said.

“At the end of the day, the evidence showed that only about six votes difference would have been found after reviewing the numerous undercounted ballots,’’ Jantzen said, ballots where it was concluded that someone intended to cast a vote but the tabulating equipment did not pick it up.

What Hamadeh wants now, the judge said, is time for additional legal “discovery’’ to investigate if problems exist with about 8,600 provisional ballots, those cast at polling places but not tabulated because of questions about whether the voters were registered to vote. Hamadeh’s argument is that Republicans have higher Election Day turnout than Democrats, meaning that counting those provisional ballots would affect a race with just an 280-vote difference.

Only thing is, Jantzen said, election challenges operate under an expedited set of rules. There is nothing in the law to do more than the limited inspection of ballots that he already allowed, he said.

The judge also said evidence about those provisional ballots was available in November and December — before the trial — had Hamadeh and his attorney exercised “sufficient diligence.’’

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“Furthermore, even considering the plaintiff’s chart showing how election day voters were trending in Maricopa County, it is still speculation to say that the difference in votes would have been made up with further discovery,’’ the judge wrote.

Jantzen was sympathetic to the problems for candidates because of time constraints for election cases that the Legislature enacted.

“But if there is an allegation of problems with provisional ballots made in the complaint, they must be asserted in some detail at the trial not not investigated later,’’ he said.

Hamadeh also argued that evidence of human error in Pinal County after a recount provided the basis for determining if there were similar problems elsewhere. But the judge said he “has no proof.’’

Nor was Jantzen convinced that Democrat Katie Hobbs, then the secretary of state, did anything wrong by failing to disclose issues in the recount before the trial in Hamadeh’s case.

“The court further finds that the evidence of the Pinal County errors would not be sufficient to be more than speculation about other errors for which there is no proof,’’ he wrote.

Hamadeh is not willing to concede.

“The court’s ruling is an invitation to appeal, and we will do just that,’’ he said in a prepared statement.