Funviralpark An Arizona judge dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican candidate for state attorney general who challenged the results, ruling that he had failed to prove his case of errors in the election process that affected the results.
Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jansen ruled Tuesday that the case from Republican nominee Abraham Hamadeh may go to trial, with four of five cases filed moving forward. made it possible.
However, Jansen said “elements of the case” were not proven at Friday’s evidence hearing.
“The bottom line is that you have not proven your case. was not enough.
“We cannot dispel the speculation that the election was done right,” he added.
Hamade and the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit late last month against Democratic candidate Chris Mays, Arizona secretary and gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs (D), and several statewide election administrators. rice field.
Dismissal of the lawsuit does not necessarily mean that Hamade will lose the election. Arizona law requires a margin of less than 0.5% for her election, so Mays led Hamade in the first tally by 511 votes behind her, triggering a statewide recount.
The recount results will be announced next week.
The count that Jansen allowed to go forward on Tuesday, among other things, involved inaccurate duplicate ballots, fraudulent omissions of provisional ballots, and allegations of miscounted ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county. I was focused.
One of the allegations made by Hamade was that Maricopa County officials wrongfully disqualified early voters who had already been marked as having voted because of the errors of polling place workers.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Republican secretary of state nominee Mark Finkem also filed election challenges at the same time as Hamade earlier this month, but their challenge is to him in at least one important way. was different from
Hamade specifically noted in his lawsuit that he did not allege widespread fraud or willful misconduct that caused him to finish the election later than Mays. Eight of the 10 cases in Lake’s lawsuit were dismissed on Monday.
Jantzen was criticized by Hamade for filing the lawsuit based on a specific argument of an unintentional error affecting the final outcome rather than widespread voter fraud, as several others have argued in other cases. but said he did not present enough evidence that the election was rigged.
Jansen said some of the contested ballots were voided due to voter error and failure to follow instructions, and attempts to get voters to fill out ballots correctly could end up in favor of either candidate. He said there was no evidence that he was swayed to do so.
Hamade Post-judgment tweet There were “thousands” of uncounted provisional ballots and thousands of voters were disqualified.
“Election Day in Maricopa County was a disaster,” he said. “Election officials failed democracy.”
