The judge who dismissed the Arizona Republican Party's lawsuit challenging Maricopa County's hand count audit methodology has issued a detailed opinion excoriating the party's "futile" lawsuit and indicating that he is close to awarding sanctions against the party and its attorneys.
Reaching back to fraud allegations between Arizona's *first* two Governors, Superior Court Judge John Hannah also found a very appropriate summation for this year's post-election campaign by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies. He was explaining why challenges to election procedures that can be brought *before* the election cannot be brought afterwards:
The temptation to actual fraud and corruption on the part of the candidates and their political supporters is never so great as when it is known precisely how many votes it will take to change the result; and men who are willing to sell their votes before election will quite as readily sell their testimony afterwards, especially as the means of detecting perjury and falsehood are not always at hand until after the wrong sought to be accomplished by it has become successful and the honest will of the people has been thwarted.
That nugget came from the 1917 Arizona Supreme Court case between George W.P. Hunt and Thomas E. Campbell. The two men were Arizona's first two Governors*, and the opinion sorts out multiple theories of fraud.
Back in the present day, Judge Hannah noted that the AZGOP could have challenged Maricopa County's decision to audit 2% of vote centers instead of 2% of precincts months earlier and had no good reason to wait, and that it could have challenged it for future elections. "That it did not do so demonstrates that its real interest was not the audit procedure as such. The real issue, evidently, was the outcome of the 2020 election."
The Hunt v. Campbell opinion provides a combination of compelling facts - including "whisky and gambling" - with legal principles that was irresistible to Hannah. After citing Chief Justice Alfred Franklin's principle that "election results are presumed to be valid and free of fraud," Hannah states "(t)hese longstanding rules have stood the test of time. They remain vital today, guarding the electoral process against the gamesmanship of those who might otherwise hedge against a loss at the polls by holding legal issues in reserve or use the law as a tool to thwart the will of the voters."
Hannah's Order comes days before AZGOP and its attorneys have to respond to the Secretary of State's request for $18,000 in attorney's fees as sanctions against both party and attorneys (jointly and severally). Hannah notes the statute indicates that he will consider "whether the Republican Party and its attorneys brought the case in bad faith to delay certification of the election or to cast false shadows on the election's legitimacy." (Footnote 4 indicates the judge is trying to figure out whether AZGOP's attorneys - Jack Wilenchik and company - knew that the hand count audit had been completed before the suit was filed.)
*Campbell won the 1916 election to replace Hunt in the Governor's mansion. This court case turned the state's keys back over to Hunt, although Campbell defeated him again in 1918 - presumably, fair and square.
"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.
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