By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — A judge has tossed the latest bid by Abe Hamadeh and others to decertify the results of the 2022 election, order it rerun in Maricopa County — and declare Kris Mayes is holding the office of attorney general illegally.

Now he and his attorney are on the hook for paying the legal fees of the state and county officials he sued.

In an extensive ruling made public Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susanna Pineda said there is no legal basis for claims by the failed Republican contender that Maricopa County improperly included some early ballots in its count of the 2022 election.

Hamadeh and attorney Ryan Heath claimed that meant the results of the election were “uncertain” because he lost by just 280 votes, seeking a declaration that Mayes “has usurped, intruded into or unlawfully holds or exercise the public office of attorney general.” More to the point, they wanted the judge to order the state to install him as attorney general, “an office to which petitioner is personally entitled.”

The problem with all that, wrote Pineda, is Hamadeh’s claim is based on his belief that early ballots can be counted only if the signatures on the outside match the voter’s “registration form.” Only thing is, she said, the Elections Procedures Manual allows signature verification to be based on the voter’s “registration record.”

The judge said while that isn’t defined, the manual suggests that means far more than the actual signature when someone first signs up. What it also includes signatures from voting rosters when people cast ballots in person and affidavits from envelopes from earlier elections, all of which are digitized.

And there’s even a bigger problem, Pineda said.

“Challenges concerning alleged procedural violations of the election process must be brought prior to the actual election,’’ the judge wrote.
She pointed out Maricopa County had announced its ballot verification plans on May 1, 2022, six months before the election. The judge said if Hamadeh had a problem with the procedure he should have brought it then.

“By filing his action after the completion of the election, petitioner asks the court to overturn the will of the people, as expressed in the 2022 election,” Pineda said.

The judge also took a slap at Hamadeh and Heath for using a process known as “quo warranto,” an action seeking a declaration that someone is holding office illegally. That is a legitimate procedure — but one that, generally speaking, only can be brought by a person claiming to be the rightful officeholder.

“However, the person claiming title to the office must show that he is entitled to the office,” the judge explained.

But in this case, she said, what Hamadeh sought actually was reverification of the 2022 Maricopa County mail-in ballots after “purging” allegedly improper signature comparisons. Or, in the alternative, she said, he sought a new election.

“He surmises, without proof, that he received the most ‘legal votes’ for the office of attorney general,” Pineda said. “That is insufficient to obtain the relief sought.”

Hamadeh, however, is not giving up.

“Arizonans deserve accountability for the extreme failures in our election in November 2022,” he said in a prepared statement, saying he will be “assessing our options with our legal team for this case.”

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, however, called the ruling “complete victory for the county in the umpteenth Hamadeh lawsuit.”
This isn’t Hamadeh’s only legal bid to overturn his loss to Mayes.
He filed a separate challenge to his loss in Mohave County right after the 2022 election. But Judge Lee Jantzen rejected the bid.

“The bottom line is, you just haven’t proven your case,” the judge ruled. “There isn’t enough information — I don’t think even slight information — the election was done illegally or incorrectly.”

Hamadeh went back last year asking Jantzen for a new trial, saying his attorneys weren’t given enough time to prepare the case. He said that denied them the ability to find the evidence some people who were legally entitled to vote did not have their ballots tabulated.

He also argued more time would have enabled his legal team to prove there were a sufficient number of situations where tabulators reported an “undervote” in the race for attorney general — essentially, that the voters had skipped that race — but where a physical examination of the ballots would show people did make a choice. And given Hamadeh outpolled Mayes among Election Day voters, he said that could more than make up for his 280-vote deficit.

When Jantzen refused, Hamadeh took his case to the state Court of Appeals, which has yet to issue a ruling.

In ordering Hamadeh to pay the legal fees of those he sued, Pineda noted he raised the same signature verification issue in two prior cases “and he had lost the exact same issue before another superior court judge in the state.” Here, she said, his decision to “mount a second identical challenge to the Maricopa County process is groundless and unjustified.”

She also slapped Heath with sanctions, saying he had a legal obligation to conduct a reasonable investigation to determine whether Hamadeh had a “viable” challenge to his loss.

“He either did not do so or he chose to ignore the history of litigation that followed the 2022 General Election, including the prior unsuccessful cases filed by his client,” the judge wrote.

Heath, for his part, said the new ruling did not address various “substantive issues” he had raised. Anyway, he said, this challenge was different than prior ones Hamadeh had raised and so far lost.

In the same new ruling issued by Pineda, she tossed out a parallel challenge — also filed by Heath — on behalf of two others who made the same claims that Maricopa County did not properly verify signatures on early ballot envelopes in the 2022 race.

But they went farther than simply seeking a new race for attorney general. They also sought to invalidate the race for governor won by Democrat Katie Hobbs, voter approval of Proposition 308 allowing “dreamers” to attend universities and colleges while paying the same tuition as other residents, and rejection of Proposition 309 that would have imposed new voter ID requirements.

The two plaintiffs, Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby and David Mast, who had been involved with efforts by Kari Lake to overturn her loss to Hobbs, argued their own legal votes had been “diluted” by the counting of illegal votes.

Pineda, however, said they lacked standing to sue because they had not shown they had actually been injured by the alleged conduct.