BREAKING, UPDATE: Maricopa County Providing Additional Duplicated Ballots For Review At This Hour UPDATE, 2:40pm:
At this hour, the parties to the lawsuit (and the political parties) are beginning to review an additional batch of duplicated ballots in Maricopa County, according to multiple Arizona's Law sources. The Court did not order the additional review, but Maricopa County extended the offer to make available another 2,700 randomly-selected ballots, and the Plaintiff's attorneys accepted.
The agreement was made at a court hearing this morning, shortly after the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors met and approved entering the Election Contest as an intervening party. (The Court approved that shortly thereafter.)
It is unclear at this point how many of the 2,700 ballots will be able to be reviewed before the evidentiary hearing scheduled to begin at 10:30am on Thursday (and continue through Friday morning). The 100 random ballots (below) required about one minute each yesterday, and it is presently unclear whether the County would be setting up additional reviewing tables and how long the reviewing process would continue into the night.
If 2,800 ballot are reviewed, that would be a 10% sample size. The County confirmed to the Court this morning that there were 27,859 ballots which had to be duplicated.
The Plaintiff had also requested that the Secretary of State's Office determine how many ballots had to be duplicated in Arizona's other (14) counties. However, the Court decided not to order that after the Secretary of State's counsel explained that the counties were not required to provide that information to their office.
Finally, as noted below, the parties did agree to the Motion's characterization of the two ballots in which discrepancies were noted. In addition, the parties reviewed the signatures on 100 mail-in ballots, and found that 8-10 had "inconclusive" matches. The plaintiff is not suggesting they were "invalid or fraudulent".
(Corrected: If 2,800 ballots are reviewed, that would be a 10% sample size of Maricopa County's 27,859 duplicated ballots. Not 1%, as previously written. h/t to @aerosquire.)
BREAKING UPDATE: Kelli Ward Asks Court To Expand Review Of Duplicated Ballots After Two Errors Found (READ Motion) .....(original article, 12:20pm)
Attorneys for Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward have asked a judge to allow them to review all duplicated ballots statewide, after a sample review in Phoenix yesterday showed two discrepancies that went against outgoing President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner allowed the Plaintiffs to review a random sample of 100 ballots which had had to be "duplicated" for one reason or another. The review took place yesterday with attorneys for all of the parties and a credentialed observer watching.
According to Ward's Motion this morning: "Of the one hundred (100) duplicate ballots that were inspected and compared to their “originals,” a ballot was identified where the original was clearly a vote for Trump, and the duplicate ballot switched the vote to Biden.
A second ballot was also identified on which the original ballot was clearly a vote only for Trump, but the duplicate ballot had a vote for both Trump and a “blank” write-in candidate, causing the “Trump” vote to be cancelled (due to an “over-vote”)."
(Later: The parties have agreed to the Motion's characterization of those two ballots. In addition, the parties reviewed the signatures on 100 mail-in ballots, and found that 8-10 had "inconclusive" matches. The plaintiff is not suggesting they were "invalid or fraudulent".)
Wilenchik requests that the County and the Secretary of State inform the Court how many duplicated ballots were counted statewide, and that if it is manageable, they be inspected by the parties.
When duplicated, ballots are supposed to be checked for the voter's intent by a "board" made up of two people from different political parties.
Ward called the development "explosive" in a video posted to Twitter this morning.
Arizona's Law has asked Maricopa County for their response, and will update this article as warranted.
Arizona Election Contest - Motion to Expand Discovery by arizonaspolitics on Scribd
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