Monday, December 7, 2020

BREAK NECK SPEED: Arizona Supreme Court Could Decide Kelli Ward's Election Contest Appeal By Tonight

UPDATE, 3:15pm: The "brief Briefs" have been filed. To read the documents and our reporting on them, please visit this article

When AZGOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward taunted Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs with "See you at the Supreme Court" on Friday night, she may not have realized that they would not actually see each other nor that the Supreme Court could rule on the appeal by Monday night.

Election-related appeals are always fast-tracked by the Arizona Supreme Court, but they added some speed this morning. Justice Bill Montgomery - a Republican who was the Maricopa County Attorney until just over a year ago - issued the Order (below) calling for briefs to be filed by noon today. As is customary for these appeals, there will be no oral argument. 

The ultra-fast deadline would indicate that the Supreme Court intends to rule either today or tomorrow morning, keeping in mind the Tuesday Safe Harbor deadline. Congress cannot challenge any state's electors if the results are certified and lawsuits resolved by the end of the day tomorrow..

Superior Court Judge Randall Warner held a two-day hearing last week, and determined Friday afternoon that the evidence did not show fraud or misconduct that would lead to changing the results.

Ward immediately appealed, and her attorney, Jack Wilenchik, told Arizona's Law that "the litigation ha(d) revealed serious (2% to .5%) error in the processing of ballots that needs to be investigated further (given that the presidential race was only 0.3% apart), and not ignored by sitting elections officials. The judge declined to allow further inspections because he believes that there is a deadline of Dec. 8th to conclude all litigation (per Bush v. Gore), which we disagree with (as did the late Justice Ginsberg, as well as Justices Souter and Breyer)."

SchedulingOrder 3937806 0 by arizonaspolitics on Scribd


Ward v Jackson - Minute Entry Deciding 120420 by arizonaspolitics on Scribd

"AZ Law" includes articles, commentaries and updates about opinions from the Arizona Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court, as well as trial and appellate courts, etc. AZ Law is founded by Phoenix attorney Paul Weich, and joins Arizona's Politics on the internet.

AZ Law airs on non-profit Sun Sounds of Arizona, a statewide reading service that provides audio access to printed material for people who cannot hold or read print material due to a disability. If you know someone who could benefit from this 24/7 service, please let them know about member-supported Sun Sounds. And, YOU can donate or listen here. 

Previous episodes of AZ Law can be streamed or downloaded here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

4 comments:

  1. Have the briefs been published yet?

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is no safe harbor deadline when the election itself is being challenged. This is particularly the case when the courts have not done their job in dealing with the massive evidence of fraud.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AZ Republicans, “We pulled 100 random ballots on a court order and 3% of them were invalid. The election totals were 0.3% apart, so there are potentially 10x as many illegal ballots as the margin of victory.”

    AZ SoS, “We don’t care. Nothing to see here. Certify!”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not how that math works. 3% were not assigned correctly. And then they pulled another 1200, and found only 4 more were incorrect. And this is only from redone ballots of which there wer 58k in the state. So 0.55% (7 of ~1300) x 58k = 319 votes that might have gone to Trump. He lost by 11000. Az SoS was correct in saying this is a waste of time.

      Delete

BREAKING: Kyrsten Sinema's Final Deal (For Now)?; Biden's Last Confirmed Judge May Be Arizona's New Judge Desai

The last Biden judicial pick to get approved for the U.S. District Court bench may well be Arizona's Sharad Desai, we learned today. Dur...