BREAKING: Maricopa County Files Emergency Motion To Try To Protect Kari Lake (& Counsel) From Potential Criminal Liability (READ Filings)

Maricopa County filed an Emergency Motion To Seal a voter's ballot affidavit envelope, in order to "protect (Kari Lake) and her counsel from potential criminal liability." Lake filed a Response on Monday and attached both the voter's 2014 envelope and her 2013 voter registration form.

This legal skirmish is taking place in one of the public records lawsuits filed by Lake's attorneys against Maricopa County and the Secretary of State's Office. This one is asking (only) Maricopa County for all ballot affidavit envelopes from the 2022 General Election.

Last month, Maricopa County filed a Motion to Dismiss the special action, noting - among other things - that Arizona statutes (A.R.S. § 16-168(F)) make it a felony to publicly disclose signatures in voters' registration records.

On Monday, Lake filed her Response, and argued that the statute does not apply to the envelopes, partly because the signature is "extracted" in order to be added to the voter registration record. To emphasize their point, she attached what appears to be a Democratic voter's ballot affidavit envelope - with signature - from August 2014, and then what appears to be the same voter's signature on a permanent early voting list request - with signature - from October 2013. Underneath the latter, attorney Brian Blehm noted that  it is "Signature Extracted from Affidavit as it appears in an Addendum to the Voter's Registration Record."

(In an abundance of caution, we have removed the Exhibits from the Response below.)

The County reached out to Lake's attorneys, and the parties agreed to seal the PEVL request form. Judge John Hannah so ordered that today.

However, the parties could not agree on sealing the first Exhibit (envelope), and the County filed their Emergency Motion. 

"Because the primary (perhaps, sole) issue dispute between the parties is whether voters’ signatures on early ballot affidavit envelopes can be publicly disclosed, the Maricopa County Defendants ask this Court to order Exhibit A sealed. Doing so will protect voters’ confidential, personally-identifying information until this Court has the opportunity to consider the law and the parties’ arguments and reach its decision.

Additionally, sealing Exhibit A protects Plaintiff and her counsel from potential criminal liability. The consequence for violating A.R.S. § 16-168(F)’s disclosure prohibitions is a class 6 felony. Thus, if this Court ultimately determines that A.R.S. § 16-168(F) prohibits public disclosure of signatures on early ballot affidavit envelopes, Plaintiff and her counsel could face criminal liability for filing an unredacted copy of Exhibit A.

Since the voter’s signature on Exhibit A has no legal or factual bearing on this case, the Court can guarantee the voter and Plaintiff are not harmed by sealing Exhibit A. The Maricopa County Defendants raised this issue with Lake’s counsel and attempted to reach an agreement to stipulate to the sealing of Exhibit A, but Lake’s counsel would not agree to stipulate."

Lake has not yet responded to the Emergency Motion, and Judge Hannah has yet to rule.

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