BREAKING, UPDATE: Judge Denies AZ Secy/State Motion To Consolidate Sharpiegate Case With Trump Lawsuit (READ)

UPDATE, 4:30pm: Judge Daniel Kiley has set Thursday, November 12 as the trial on President Trump's lawsuit alleging that poll worker errors dealing with potential overvotes may have cost the President "up to thousands of additional votes" for the President and other Republican candidates.

Attorneys for Maricopa County and the Secretary of State told the judge that only 180 ballots cast on Election Day contained overvotes in the Presidential race. (If anyone else had inadvertently voted for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, he or she opted to "spoil" that ballot and properly mark a new ballot.)

UPDATE, 2:00pm: Judge Daniel Kiley has given the parties to the Trump campaign lawsuit 95 minutes notice of an initial conference this afternoon. The attorneys are to appear by video at 3pm. The court will discuss scheduling and the motion(s) to intervene at the hearing. The Order came 1 1/2 hours after Judge Margaret Mahoney dismissed the preceding "Sharpiegate" case. (details below)

 The so-called Sharpiegate lawsuit is dismissed and will NOT be consolidated with the suit filed Saturday by the Trump campaign. That was the ruling moments ago from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Margaret Mahoney.

Mahoney denied the bid by Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to keep the first case active in order to expedite a decision on the Trump campaign's Saturday lawsuit alleging that poll workers improperly handled voters' ballots on Election Day.

As more fully explained in our earlier article, the Secretary of State - represented by outside attorneys at Coppersmith Brockelman - argued that the Sharpiegate plaintiffs' notice of dismissal on Saturday should not be accepted because the Republican National Committee had filed an Answer to the Complaint that became accepted when Judge Mahoney allowed them to intervene.

Mahoney noted this morning that the Answer did not immediately become filed and that it was just a "Proposed Answer".

Mahoney had set a hearing schedule for this week in the now-dismissed Sharpiegate case. The new judge in the Trump campaign case filed Saturday night will need to move quickly to match that schedule.

Shapriegate Minute Entry Ruling by arizonaspolitics on Scribd

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