Suit challenging Arizona vote faults secretary of state

PHOENIX — The failure of Secretary of State Michele Reagan to properly monitor last month’s presidential primary is grounds to have the results voided even if it won’t change the outcome, an attorney challenging the results told a judge Tuesday.

Michael Kielsky cited what he said were irregularities in how several counties handled the election. Those range from long lines in Maricopa County to voters in Pima County and elsewhere being told their political party registration had been changed.

And he said Reagan “knew or should have known.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Gass said he will hear the specifics of those arguments Monday — assuming he does not first grant motions by the state and counties to dismiss the case. But Gass questioned why he should even hear the case, given that John Brakey, Kielsky’s client, is not alleging that the results of the Republican, Democrat or Green Party primaries would have been different.

Gass said he does not condone someone improperly being denied the opportunity to vote, but said it appears “everyone was equally disenfranchised.” And that means there is no evidence that any one candidate might have done better or worse had the voting problems not occurred.

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Kielsky said the fact the election results would still have Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein as winners of their respective party primaries is irrelevant and a legal “distraction.”

“The conduct of elections has to comply with state law,” the attorney argued. And Kielsky said nothing in the law that says those challenging elections have to prove there would have been a different outcome.

“We tell the voters, the people at large, you have a voice, you have a voice in your government, you have a voice in helping select your leaders,” Kielsky said, only to have that undermined by how the election was conducted.

There appear not to be a lot of factual disputes.

The failure of Maricopa County to set up no more than 60 polling places is a matter of record, as is the fact that some people had to wait five hours after the polls closed to cast their ballots. Others left without voting.