Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink on Tuesday shot down a lawsuit brought by AG Kris Mayes in order to stop the Cochise County Board of Supervisors and County Recorder, giving the Recorder authority to administer elections. This would have made it easier to cheat. Newly elected Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes had filed a lawsuit in an effort to get the agreement between the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, giving the recorder the power to oversee the county elections.
Mayes allegedly won the election by just 280 votes. The difference was 511 votes by a recount in just one small county produced 230 votes for Abe Hamadeh who is going to court in May in order to overturn the election. As The Gateway Pundit recently reported, Abe Hamadeh’s Motion for New Trial was granted with new Oral Arguments, scheduled for May 16, and a review of the roughly 8,000 provisional ballots will likely overturn the Arizona Attorney General race.
On March 7, Kris Mayes put out the following press release, claiming that the Board of Supervisors violated the law by delegating election duties to the County Recorder:
“Today, my office filed a lawsuit against Cochise County, the members of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, and the County Recorder for their unlawful agreement to delegate nearly all of the Board’s election duties to the Recorder. The Agreement is essentially an unqualified handover from the Board to the Recorder, not one that would allow both entities to work hand in hand to fulfill their statutory duties openly and transparently.
While counties may appropriately enter into cooperative agreements with their recorders to manage elections, Cochise County’s agreement steps far over the legal line. In addition to this broad transfer of power, I am deeply concerned this move might shield or obscure actions and deliberations the Board would typically conduct publicly under open meeting law.
Suing other public officials is not something I take lightly–but it is my job as Attorney General to bring action when public officials unlawfully exercise their power or act outside the confines of their authority.”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELTucson.com reports,
A judge rejected a request from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to block the Cochise County Board of Supervisors from handing over its election administration to the elected county recorder.
On Tuesday, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink turned aside Mayes’ request for an injunction blocking the February agreement from being implemented. Mayes had argued in her lawsuit that the board illegally delegated its oversight of elections to Recorder David Stevens.
But Fink said the agreement the board signed gives it sufficient oversight to meet the law’s requirements, including regular reports from Stevens to the board and its ability to overturn any decisions it finds objectionable.
“If there is a problem with the recorder’s performance of his election duties, these provisions are safeguards that are in the court’s opinion sufficient to ensure that the board means authority over the conduct of elections in Cochise County,” Fink said.
The decision came after an hour-long court hearing in which Solicitor General Josh Bendor, representing Mayes, tried to persuade Fink that the county was illegally delegating its authority to Stevens.
The county’s hired outside attorney, Timothy La Sota, said the Attorney General’s Office was nitpicking the agreement to find faults that weren’t there.
“If you look at the state’s critique of the agreement, it looks more like what a lawyer would put together for a client when they’re just kind of looking for things to pick out about something they don’t like,” La Sota told the judge. “’I don’t like how this is written,’ ‘I don’t like how that’s written.’”
La Sota pointed out that the county board, made up of two Republicans and one Democrat, retained the power to review decisions made by Stevens and replace him if it wants.
Those were important clarifications of the agreement, which the state read differently, Bendor said in an interview after the hearing ended.
