By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Republican Abe Hamadeh won’t give up his bid to challenge his loss to Democrat Kris Mayes in the 2022 race for attorney general even if Arizonans vote to send him to Congress in November.

Erica Knight, who is handling publicity for the GOP contender, said Monday his likely election in CD 8 against Democrat Gregory Whitten — this is a heavily Republican congressional district — won’t end his legal claims now in front of the Arizona Supreme Court that he was improperly and illegally denied the opportunity to look for and present evidence when he first challenged his 280-vote loss.

When he finally did get some of those materials, Hamadeh said, Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen refused to grant him a new trial so he could present all that.

Now Hamadeh wants the state’s high court to overturn Jantzen’s actions.

Much of that is based on his claim the Mohave County judge illegally denied him to access “cast vote record.”

That essentially is a computerized representation of how voters voted, stripped of any individual identifying information. Hamadeh argued the information could be analyzed by an expert to find problems with vote tallies.

That includes what were recorded as “under votes,” ballots where the tallying equipment showed someone voted for candidates in other races but no vote in the race for attorney general. If he had that cast vote record, Hamadeh argued, he could request to see the ballots to determine if someone actually had voted for him but that the tabulating machines did not record.

The Court of Appeals, in refusing to overturn Jantzen’s decision, said Hamadeh failed to show how any of that might have changed the outcome of the race he lost by 280 votes.

What Hamadeh also is telling the Supreme Court he was entitled to see — and what was denied to him by Jantzen — is a list of Maricopa County voters whose provisional ballots were rejected.

Generally speaking, these are cases where there is no record of the person being registered to vote in that county.

Hamadeh said the fact they were not listed as registered had to do with a change in procedures in what happens at the Motor Vehicle Division when someone updates his or her information. And he contends that many of these votes would have been for him.

Here, too, the appellate court said Hamadeh never answered the question of how counting those ballots would likely have an effect on the outcome.

Hamadeh filed for Supreme Court review in May. The last activity, however, was June 10 when Mayes filed her response. No date has been set for a hearing.

The lack of action apparently has left Hamadeh frustrated.

“Have you asked the court why they slowed walked this case and granted expedited review for others?” asked Knight when she was queried about Hamadeh’s future plans.

Her contention is only partly true. The Supreme Court has yet another 2022 election case still waiting for action: a bid by Kari Lake contesting her loss in the gubernatorial race where she wants the state’s high court to order a new election in Maricopa County.

Hamadeh’s position leaves a significant legal question: What would happen if he wins the race for Congress but does get a new trial — and somehow convinces a court that he really did win the race for attorney general.

Knight sidestepped the question.

“These hypotheticals are a waste of time,” she said, again lashing out at the Supreme Court for its failure to consider his claims.

“At no point has the court given any indication they have the urgency to see the closest race in Arizona history get litigated,” Knight said. “Abe is committed to saving his country and doesn’t have the time to wait on certain justices to find their courage.”

Congressional District 8 includes portions of Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Sun City, Sun City West and Surprise.

The comments about Hamadeh’s future actions comes as a judge in another case said Monday he is off the hook from having to pay the legal fees of Maricopa County officials.

In a new order, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney did not take back his July order dismissing Hamadeh’s claims that printer problems in 2022 at Maricopa County voting centers resulted in long lines. Those lines, Hamadeh argued, resulted in some voters simply walking away before getting a chance to vote in the race for attorney general.

The solution according to attorney Ryan Heath, was to re-do the election.

“If the voters desire to have Kris Mayes represent Arizona as the attorney general, then a re-vote in Maricopa County will not change that result,” he argued. “Yet if the will of the voters was thwarted by Maricopa County’s well-publicized failures on Election Day, then that also will be clear with the issuance of the writ requested.”

Blaney, in his initial ruling earlier this year, said all that is legally irrelevant.

“This case is actually an untimely election contest,” the judge said, no matter how Hamadeh dressed it up as a violation of his constitutional rights.

“Any action contesting a state election must be filed within five days after completion of the canvass of the election and declaration of the result thereof by the secretary of state or the governor,” said Blaney. That would have been in the first week of December 2022; the case was filed in November 2023.

But that, said the judge, doesn’t make him liable to pay the county’s legal fees defending the case.

But Blaney said county officials, while having won the lawsuit, failed to show Hamadeh and his supporters had engaged in any improper actions in filing the lawsuit — the gateway for winning parties to get their legal fees paid.

“Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims were novel, rested on issued of statewide importance, and were fairly debatable even though success on the claims might have been a long shot,” the judge wrote. “The court can find no impropriety in the filing of plaintiffs’ present lawsuit, certainly no impropriety that rises to the level of sanctionable conduct.”

Hamadeh now actually has made three separate arguments in his efforts to overturn his 2022 loss.

He also had asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susan Pineda to declare Mayes is holding the office of attorney general illegally. That was based on a claim that Maricopa County improperly included some early ballots in its count of the 2022 election.

Pineda, however, ruled that Hamadeh was legally incorrect in saying ballots can be counted only if the signatures on the outside of the envelopes match the voter’s registration form.