A Republican candidate for Arizona’s attorney general position on Nov. 22 sued his opponent and a slew of election officials, including officials in Maricopa County, alleging that widespread “errors and inaccuracies” caused voter disenfranchisement.
Officials in at least 15 counties have “caused the unlawful denial of the franchise to certain qualified electors, erroneously tallied certain ballots, and included for tabulation in the canvass certain illegal votes in connection with the election for the office of Arizona Attorney General,” Abe Hamadeh, the candidate, said in the complaint.
That includes Maricopa County officials improperly disqualifying ballots cast by people who, as a direct result of poll worker errors, were incorrectly listed as voting previously in the midterm election, Hamadeh added.
“Immediate judicial intervention is necessary to secure the accuracy of the results of the November 8, 2022 general election, and to ensure that candidate who received the highest number of lawful votes is declared the next Arizona Attorney General,” the complaint states.
The filing was lodged in Maricopa County court.
The Arizona attorney general race is headed to a recount, according to Katie Hobbs, the state’s secretary of state, due to the slim margin separating Hamadeh from Democrat candidate Kris Mayes.
Mayes is leading by just 510 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast, according to an unofficial tally from Hobbs’s office.
Mayes and Hobbs, who were named as defendants in the new suit, did not respond to requests for comment. A Maricopa County spokesperson did not immediately return an inquiry.
Problems
Maricopa County officials have acknowledged problems with tabulation equipment, saying the problem affected 30 percent of all voting centers in the county and an estimated 17,000 ballots.
On election day the officials said that voters could place their ballots in a secure box to be counted later. Other options included “checking out” of the poll site and casting a ballot at another location, or utilizing an early ballot if one was possessed.
