The Arizona Republican Party now has overlapping lawsuits challenging Maricopa County's conduct of the election, and the Sharpiegate plaintiffs also filed a new lawsuit against the county last night.
Both Complaints were filed yesterday in Maricopa County Superior Court as Judge Daniel Kiley was winding down a full-day trial.
(Clarification, 11:50am: The AZGOP Complaint alleged that the County had not yet conducted its post-election hand-count audit. In fact, it has already taken place. We have added that to the body of this article. h/t to my colleague @modernista64.)
The Arizona GOP - a party to yesterday's action - has retained Jack Wilenchik, his father Dennis and former Republican Party official Lee Miller - to file last night's action. (See below) It claims that the County's election officials - overseen by Recorder Adrian Fontes and the Board of Supervisors - should be required to hand count more ballots.
State law requires a hand count of 2% of the precincts. This year, Maricopa County went to the Vote Center model; that eliminated the precinct polling places present in past elections. The County last week conducted a post-election hand count of 2% of the 175 Vote Centers. The lawsuit claims that they should have actually been required to audit 2% of the 748 precincts in the county. (It would seem that - depending on the locations chosen at random - you would be likely to hand count approximately the same number of ballots.)
The case from the Sharpiegate plaintiffs - which they dismissed this past Saturday - covers most of the same ground of yesterday's trial. That case was brought by Donald Trump's campaign and the Arizona and national Republican committees, and is awaiting the judge's decision. Earlier, Judge Kiley determined that the Sharpiegate plaintiffs could not intervene in yesterday's trial because they had already filed a suit and dismissed it. The plaintiffs are again represented by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (a conservative group) and local attorney Alexander Kolodin.
Here are the new complaints:
Aguilera Complaint #2 by arizonaspolitics on Scribd
AZGOP Complaint #2 by arizonaspolitics on Scribd
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