AZ Supreme Court Discloses The Names of The ‘Anonymous’ Plaintiffs in the QAnon Lawsuit

Remember that crazy QAnon lawsuit that sought to overturn the 2018 and 2020 election results, brought by “anonymous” plaintiffs who did not want the public to know they are QAnon adherents, so they would not be subjected to public shame and ridicule? You Can’t Spell Crazy Without ‘R-AZ’ – The Latest Election Lawsuit (Updated).

Nice try. Oh, we’re going to subject you to public shame and ridicule. I hope none of these people are your neighbor or coworker, or worse, a family member.

The Arizona Supreme Court has now disclosed the names of the “anonymous” plaintiffs too ashamed to take ownership of their insane QAnon cult beliefs. The Arizona Republic reports, Court names the 20 people who wanted to toss Arizona elections, put themselves in office:

The Arizona Supreme Court, in a Wednesday ruling, ordered the names be made public. A document was unsealed Thursday that revealed the names.

None appear to be recognizable political figures in Arizona.

The group filed the papers under the name: We The People of the State of Arizona. But a spokesperson for the group had said that was meant as a generic description, not a proper name.

“We The People” is also frequently used by QAnon adherents.

The spokesperson said this group had no affiliation with the pro-Trump political group We The People, which has also been a champion of the Arizona State Senate-ordered audit of all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County.

This group had asked for anonymity for security reasons. In its filing, it said the members understood that their names would be public should the court act on the petition and entertain installing the members into public office.

Once in office, the group argued in a motion, their public stature “would have provided a measure of safety in itself.”

The Arizona Supreme Court dismissed the case three business days after it was filed. It then gave the group a deadline to file a motion explaining why the individual’s names needed to be kept from public view. After receiving that motion on Monday, the court rejected the request on Wednesday and ordered the names be made available.

The group’s novel petition suggested that a slew of office holders who won election in the 2018 and 2020 elections, as well as the 2019 Tucson mayoral election, were holding their office improperly. The group offered a novel solution: to take the place of what it called usurpers until a proper election could be held.

The claim was rooted in a truth: The federal agency charged with certifying the two companies in the United States that audit election machines had not given a by-the-book certification for years. Both were still certified under federal law as their renewals were still working through the bureaucratic process.

A spokesperson for the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency created by the Help America Vote Act, said both companies have continued to have staff visit and assess the machines, ensuring their testing was up to accreditation standards.

Jack Cobb, the co-founder of Pro V&V, one of the groups, told The Republic that the problem wasn’t practical, but political. His company was still operating up to federal standards, he said. But the board of political appointees simply hadn’t voted to renew the certification, providing a final stamp of approval.

The Arizona Supreme Court said, in its ruling, that even if the request was timely, it could not entertain tossing out election results absent evidence that the errors pointed out by the group would have changed the results.

“The validity of an election is not voided by honest mistakes or omissions,” the court wrote in its ruling, citing a case dating back to 1887, when Arizona was still a territory.

The court also pointed out that the petition was, by statute, meant to be filed by a county attorney or state attorney general, or someone with a viable claim to the office.

In its ruling, the court said that “nothing in the statutes Petitioners cite grants them a private right of action to remove office holders and sit in their stead.”

[T]he group asked the court to oust four statewide officeholders: Gov. Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, State Treasurer Kimberly Yee and the Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman. It also sought to boot four members of the Arizona Corporation Commission, the mayors of Phoenix and Tucson, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, and six state lawmakers, including the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives.

The group said it targeted as many office holders as there were members of the group willing to take their place in office. The group said it chose the offices strategically, knowing the transition would be a difficult time for the state but that having ordinary citizens in these key places would keep the state running as smoothly as possible.

The group spared Attorney General Mark Brnovich in its court case, according to Slade, because the group didn’t have any lawyer who could have replaced him.

Although the same machines the group found problematic were also used for the 2020 election for U.S. President, the group did not seek redress for Arizona’s electoral votes being awarded to President Joe Biden and not former President Donald Trump.

The group had filed its action with the Arizona Supreme Court anonymously, using only initials. In the filing, it included a series of documents that contained the individual members’ names, dates of birth and home addresses, which the group said was intended to show all were qualified to hold public office in Arizona.

The court, in its ruling on Wednesday, ordered that a copy of those affidavits be unsealed, with the addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers redacted.

The court said that the group’s concerns about security could not overcome the requirements set out in the Arizona Constitution, state statute and the rules governing the courts.

The court said that “the public’s right to know the identities of Petitioners outweighs their desire to proceed anonymously.“

Although the group referenced a provision in the state constitution that said no person should be disturbed in their private affairs, the court said, in its ruling that members’ effort “to unseat publicly elected officeholders through this Court is not a private affair.”

Two people involved with the effort have communicated with The Republic only through email, denying requests for interviews by phone.

However, both spoke on an online talk show hosted by former state legislative candidate Liz Harris, who has provided thrice daily updates on the audit ordered by the Arizona State Senate of the 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County. The interview took place on May 11, the day the state high court dismissed the case.

Rayana Eldan, whose name, along with Daniel Wood, a 2020 Congressional candidate, were the only two used in the court filing, said that she started looking at the problems with the election in January or February.

“We’re not contesting a county or a couple of votes here,” Eldan said on the show, which has since been removed from Harris’s Facebook page and made private on YouTube. “We’re basically saying the entire state wasn’t treated fairly and their rights were violated.”

[H]ad the petition been successful, Eldan would have been temporarily installed as the mayor of Tucson, the state’s second largest city.

Wood, who has announced his intention to campaign for Congress again in 2022, said on the show that the group came together after hearing a speech he gave at a district meeting. He described the group as ordinary citizens, not affiliated with any recognized or established group.

“This has nothing to do with any organization, has nothing to do with some kind of plan or Q,” he said, referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory that imagines Trump was preparing to dismantle and arrest a global cabal of politicians and celebrities engaged in crimes against children. Wood posted about the QAnon conspiracy during the 2020 campaign and told The Republic he followed Q’s writings and had found some truth in them.

Wood said that he had first learned of the certification issue in the spring of 2020, but realized the issue would have been too much for him to tackle on his own.

“In my mind,” he said, “I was thinking borderline treason.”

Yeah, this kook is totally qualified to run for Congress … not! Well, maybe in Arizona. Exhibit A: Paul Gosar, Exhibit B: Andy Biggs.