A superior court judge rejected the Arizona attorney general’s request to revamp election rules for the 2022 election cycle, citing timing as the reason for the rejection.
Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper denied Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s request to ask Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to improve the election procedure manual for the 2022 elections on Friday.
“At this point in the game, there is no mechanism for the Court to assist the parties in constructing an EMP which complies with [the law] within the timelines of the statute,” Napper wrote in Friday’s ruling, reported The Associated Press. “The Complaint was filed far too late for this to occur without disrupting elections that have already begun.”
The judge’s rejection marked the end of the AG’s complaint first filed against Hobbs in April, in which he alleged that Hobbs refused to make changes in the elections procedures manual and did not provide him with a “legally-compliant” election procedures manual by Oct. 1, 2021, as required by Arizona state law.
“This case is about the Secretary’s ongoing violation of her mandatory statutory duty to promulgate an Elections Procedures Manual (“EPM”) for the 2022 election cycle,” reads Brnovich’s court filing dated April 21. “To cure that ongoing violation, Plaintiffs are entitled to special action relief ordering the Secretary to comply with the mandatory requirement of providing a legally-compliant EPM to the AG and Governor for approval.”
asked that the court order Hobbs to amend the election procedures manual by adding election integrity measures,
including prohibiting unstaffed drop boxes,
requiring signature verification for non-mailed early ballots, and
preserving the requirement that voters vote in their precinct,
according to a June 10 statement on the AG’s website.
http://www.ntd.com/arizona-judge-declines-request-to-improve-election-security-citing-timing-reasons_796477.html?utm_source=newsletter&;utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2022-06-20
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