Update to Proving That He Is Too Inexperienced And Incompetent To Be Attorney General, Abe Hamadeh Files A Premature Election Contest.

Maricopa County is now being tag teamed by the MAGA/QAnon cult election deniers. More on the lame duck “QAnon Queen” Sen. Kelly Townsend abusing the power of her office on her way out the door. Senate Subpoenas Maricopa County Supervisors, Calls For Records And Explanations:

On Tuesday, the Arizona Senate subpoenaed the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors seeking records related to and explanations for the County’s botched Election Day. Across Maricopa County, printers at 70 of the 223 vote centers were not in working condition, leading to long lines and potential voter disenfranchisement.

Chair of the Senate Government Committee, Sen. Kelly Townsend, gave the County until November 28, at 9:30 a.m. to respond to the Senate’s demand for information.

“Today, I issued a subpoena to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to request answers to many questions that I have regarding the 2022 General Election,” Townsend told the Arizona Daily Independent. “The subpoena is time-sensitive due to the nature of the requirement to canvas, and although it is a large amount of material required, I am confident they will be able to submit that to my office prior to the deadline on Monday morning. Transparency is crucial when it comes to voter confidence, therefore, providing the answers to these questions will be a major healing step and is important regarding the upcoming legislative session, and writing effective election reform law. I look forward to their answers.”

This 501(c)(4) of millionaires and billionaires who think they are “masters of the universe” need to be sued out of existence:

The Free Enterprise Club, a taxpayer advocacy organization that has worked this past year to restore confidence in the election process [B.S.!], blasted the County on Tuesday for its failures on Election Day and its response to questions about how those failures could have occurred.

“Maricopa County dropped the ball. They botched the election, and there is simply no way for politicians to gaslight their way out of it. After years of fear mongering from the media and the left that election integrity measures would suppress and disenfranchise voters, it turns out no one suppresses and disenfranchises voters quite like politicians and bureaucrats in Maricopa County,” argued the Club. “Rather than taking accountability for their failures, they have rubbed their incompetence in the faces of frustrated voters, smugly downplaying their failure and patting themselves on the back, asserting that they made a “remarkable effort.”

The Arizona Attorney General’s Elections Integrity Unit [led by an election denier] has also demanded a response from Maricopa County “pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election.”

The Attorney General’s demand follows “statements made by both Chairman Gates and Recorder Richer, along with information Maricopa County released through official modes of communication appear to confirm potential statutory violations of Title 16,” according to Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright.

Gates admitted on Twitter that over 6 percent of Election Day ballots were impacted by printer issues but denied that the failure resulted in voter suppression. Accounts from Republican attorneys appear to contradict that claim.

So we are supposed to take the word of election observers trained by Coup Plotter Cleta Mitchell and the GQP voter suppression organization True The Vote? Anyone affiliated with this GQP poll observer project should immediately be dismissed as not credible.

The Maricopa Republican Party Chair is also tagging in on this election denialism act. ‘Not a comprehensive test’: County GOP chair won’t sign off on post-election review of equipment:

A month after approving the results of pre-election tabulator tests, party Chair Mickie Niland said she no longer believes the examinations go far enough to ensure public trust in the machines and election officials’ preparedness.

In a statement, Niland cited concerns over insufficient testing between the county’s ballot printers and tabulators. She said a more through review of election preparations should replace the test, which she called “largely ceremonial.”

“My primary reason for not signing this test is I feel the test is largely obligatory, and is not a comprehensive test of their preparedness,” she said.

Who cares what she thinks? State aw, enacted by a Republican-controlled legislature, requires a “logic and accuracy test” of the equipment before and after the election. She signed off on the logic and accuracy test before the election, if the post-election test results are the same she has a ministerial duty to sign off on the post-election logic and accuracy test. She has no authority to demand more than what state law requires. This is the same stunt we saw after the 2020 election.

Niland refusing to sign off on the tests won’t halt the election certification process, it marks a continued trend of some prominent Republican candidates and personalities sowing doubt in Maricopa County’s election system.

In Arizona, pre- and post-election tests ensure that tabulators, machines used to count ballots, are tallying votes accurately. Both the state and county conduct their own examinations, known as logic and accuracy tests, to ensure proper counting. The pre-election test ensures that the tabulators are programmed properly; post-election tests verify no changes occurred on the machines.

Niland signed the pre-election logic and accuracy test conducted on Oct. 11, according to Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson.

Political party representatives are invited to observe pre- and post-election testing of equipment. The Democrat who took part said she had absolute confidence in the election results.

* * *

Niland had no concerns about the numbers not matching up, according to her statement.

“I have no doubt that the ballots will go through the central count tabulator with flying colors,” she said. “I have participated in two hand count audits where the results of these tabulators were confirmed by the bipartisan hand count teams.”

My issue, she said, is that the test is insufficiently broad to catch issues like Maricopa County’s Election Day printer woes. About 30% of the county’s polling places experienced issues with printers producing ballots with marks too light for tabulators to read.

“To me anything less than a test of ALL the equipment is incomplete and does not logically or accurately test the process this equipment will be put through on Election Day,” Niland said.

* * *

Logic and accuracy test procedures are laid out in state law, and Schriber said she believes the county followed it.

“She wanted different things included, and that’s fine,” Schriber said. “But they followed the law and ran the test the way it is laid out in the law.

“The only intent of that team is to make sure that every vote on every ballot is counted and that the intent of the voter is honored,” she said. “I have full faith in this team. I have full faith in the process.”

Finally the Big Kahuna of Arizona’s election denier groupies, “Krazy Kari” Lake has filed her lawsuit to disenfranchise every voter who voted in this election and to declare her the winner. Fuck off, lady!

The Arizona Mirror reports, Kari Lake files suit against Maricopa County election officials:

Republican Kari Lake has filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County election officials, demanding they provide information about voters whose ballots were affected by tabulation mishaps in the county on Election Day in a last-ditch attempt to cast doubt on the results that determined she lost her bid for governor.

In a video interview with [Coup Plotter Insurrectionist and convicted felon] Steve Bannon, Lake slammed the county’s handling of the election and said the information her campaign is seeking will be used to bolster a follow-up lawsuit.

“We need information from Maricopa County. They ran the shoddiest election ever in history and we want some information,” Lake said in the video. “We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election.”

Lake, who has built her brand on the inaccurate claim that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, has previously indicated that she would refuse to accept the outcome of a midterm election in which she was not the winner. Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs won the gubernatorial race by around 17,000 votes, a margin by which a recount is not warranted under current state law.

Problems with on-demand printers on Election Day affected around 70 polling places in Maricopa County and resulted in some confusion as voters were directed to either place their ballot in a special drawer, nicknamed Door #3, for later tabulation at Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center or check-out of vote centers experiencing issues to vote at a second site. Some 146 people left voting centers experiencing issues without checking out and traveled to a second site, where they were issued provisional ballots. The county promised to review and count those provisional ballots.

In the brief, Lake’s attorney, Timothy La Sota, alleges that as many as 118 polling centers in the county dealt with issues because of tabulators which wouldn’t read ballots, leading to frustrated voters who were forced to wait in long lines or left without voting. The lawsuit requests that the court require the county’s election officials to provide public records before the canvassing deadline of Nov. 28, to give Lake’s campaign time to seek redress.

“In the absence of an immediate and comprehensive production of the requested public records, (Kari Lake) cannot ascertain the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” wrote Timothy La Sota, Lake’s attorney.

The lawsuit relies on declarations from voters, some of whom shared that they ended up leaving due to long wait times, said they were afraid their votes weren’t properly counted or personally witnessed chaotic conditions at poll sites.

Republican Lawyers tried this shtick in 2020, and were shut-out by the Courts in 64 challenges to election results around the nation. I don’t expect a different result.

The information being requested is extensive and wide-ranging, including the names and contact information of voters who were present at polling sites that experienced printer malfunctions, the number of ballots that were spoiled or canceled for any reason, and the number of UOCAVA ballots, cast by overseas military members, and their verification processes.

Also requested are the names and contact information of voters who dropped off a mail-in ballot on Election Day and also submitted an in-person ballot, resulting in the rejection of the former. The information of voters who filled in provisional ballots after checking in at a second site, as well as data on polling sites and the wait times that were reported online were also requested.

Adjudication, the process by which election officials determine the intent of a voter when dealing with uncertainty about the voter’s eligibility or choice, also came under fire in the lawsuit, which requested that adjudication rates by legislative district be provided.

Lake’s lawsuit comes as election officials in the state are grappling with several challenges from Republican politicians. On Tuesday, Republican nominee for Attorney General Abe Hamadeh filed against Maricopa County, claiming that issues on Election Day cost him the race. The Republican National Committee joined Hamadeh in his suit, but did not bolster Lake’s.

Also on Tuesday, outgoing Republican state Sen. Kelly Towsend, who currently chairs the Senate Government Committee, subpoenaed the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, which oversees Election Day voting. Townsend, a frequent proponent of the Big Lie, demanded that the board provide more information on the tabulation and printer malfunctions that occurred during the midterm election and gave them until Nov. 28 at 9:30 a.m. to answer.

Maricopa County Offices are closed Nov. 24 and Nov. 25 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich sent a letter last Saturday asking Maricopa County for an explanation of how the problems with on-demand printers at polling sitesoccurred and were fixed. The county replied it would answer after the official canvass on Nov. 28, which is statutorily mandated, was completed.

UPDATE: I somehow missed this from Coup Plotter fake GQP elector “Chemtrails”Kelli Ward:

On Tuesday, state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward sent a letter to Maricopa County demanding answers to her own set of questions that deal with the election.

Ward wants answers by 5 p.m. Friday. Among her questions was how the county will conduct the recount triggered by the close races.

“While disclosing the records reflecting this data and the process for reconciling these issues cannot restore the loss of suffrage for voters who were disenfranchised by the long lines and confusion, it is absolutely necessary for immediate transparency,” Ward wrote.

“Given the systemic election failures experienced by voters in Maricopa County on Election Day, it is of paramount importance that a full accounting of every reconciled ballot and checked-in voter be done to assure the public that every vote was properly counted.”

A this caterwauling from Republicans about being inconvenienced from having to wait in line – a situation that they themselves created with their nonsense over early voting and mail ballots – rings hollow. This is a party that has been dedicated to voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression of minority voters and college students for decades. See, No One Should Have to Stand in Line for 10 Hours to Vote (2008). And it is only getting worse as the GQP has dedicated itself to being the authoritarian party of White Christian Nationalists. Now that whitey from Scottsdale had to wait in a line because they don’t trust early voting it is a problem? Fuck off, crybaby.

Just remember, you can’t spell “crazy” without R-AZ.




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