UPDATED, 5:35pm: The Arizona Supreme Court granted The Lincoln Project permission to file a "friend of the court" brief in this case by the end of the evening. The Lincoln Project is a high-profile group of Republicans and ex-Republicans who strenuously opposed the re-election of Donald Trump.
This makes it less likely that the Justices will issue a ruling on the appeal tonight, although that is still possible. The Lincoln Project's request, their proposed brief - prepared by California and Arizona attorneys - and the Court's Order are provided below.
UPDATED, 3:30pm: Added the subsequently uploaded taxpayer-funded briefs from Maricopa County (in house) and Secretary of State. We have also added a quote from our conversation with two respected colleagues.
Earlier, we
reported on the quick turnaround requested by the Arizona Supreme Court for briefs on AZGOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward's Election Contest for outgoing President Donald Trump. Both sides (apparently) met the noon deadline, and presented succinct arguments.
As ordered, Plaintiff spent the first section of the brief (below) arguing that tomorrow's Safe Harbor deadline is not a drop-dead date for this case to be finally decided by. If he convinces a majority of the Justices of that, they should then tell Superior Court Judge Randall Warner to allow the Plaintiffs to review the balance of the 27,859 ballots which had to be duplicated in Maricopa County.
As the Defendants point out in their brief, however, there is no basis for believing that such a review would change the result. Last week's review of 1,626 of those ballots would have resulted in only six additional votes for Donald Trump; at that rate, Trump would only gain 103 votes against Joe Biden.
Defendants seem to acknowledge that the Safe Harbor deadline set forth in federal law is not a drop-dead date for deciding the litigation.
However, Arizona appellate expert Taylor Young* tells AZ Law that Ward may not have convinced the Justices. "It's difficult to see a basis for overturning the specific rulings Judge Warner made, either about laches or the absence of fraud or misconduct."
Chandler attorney Tom Ryan added: "It's a basic: de minimis non curat lex meaing "the law does not concern itself with trifles." At best Kelli Ward's case might return an additional 103+ votes for Trump. When the Biden/Harris ticket won by over 10,000 votes, Kelli's case does nothing."
A decision by the Supreme Court is expected later today or early tomorrow.
The briefs filed by Maricopa County and the Secretary of State were made available after the above. We have added them below.
*Taylor C. Young is senior appellate counsel at Burg Simpson, Tom Ryan practices law in Chandler.
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