UPDATE: Finchem Asks Judge To Reconsider Election Contest Sanctions, Just Before Defendants Are To Submit Their Bills (READ Motion)

Former Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem and his attorney, Dan McCauley, have asked the Superior Court judge who dismissed the Election Contest in December to reconsider her decision to award sanctions to the defendants. The Motion for Reconsideration comes days before those defendants are to submit evidence of the attorneys' fees incurred in responding to the challenge.

Finchem focuses on his disproven claims that tabulation machines used throughout the state in the 2022 election were not properly certified, and claims that more than 500,000 ballots must therefore be thrown out. Judge Melissa Iyer Julian has repeatedly found that the machines were properly certified. 

In her recent Minute Entry, she noted that Finchem had initially claimed 80,000 votes were impacted and that would not have been enough to change Finchem's margin of defeat to Adrian Fontes. The Motion for Reconsideration thus claims the half-million number is what had been initially alleged. McCauley told Arizona's Law last week that he did not have a chance to clarify that to the judge during oral arguments because she had been so argumentative with him.

Next week, Defendant Fontes (in both his capacity as private citizen/contestee and as the now-Secretary of State) has to file what the attorneys' fees incurred were. Fontes would only have to respond to this Motion for Reconsideration if Judge Julian asks for a Response; otherwise, she will simply deny the Motion.

Here is the Motion for Reconsideration:

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