Arizona's Cochise County election results ordered to be certified - NPR

A antheral walks retired aft casting his ballot connected Election Day 2020 successful Tombstone, Ariz., successful Cochise County. Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images

A antheral walks retired aft casting his ballot connected Election Day 2020 successful Tombstone, Ariz., successful Cochise County.

Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images

An Arizona authorities justice has ordered officials successful Republican-controlled Cochise County to certify their section midterm elections results aft they missed the state's ineligible deadline and enactment more than 47,000 people's votes astatine risk.

Ruling from the seat astatine a tribunal proceeding connected Thursday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley ordered the county's committee of supervisors to conscionable and marque the results officials by 5 p.m. MT Thursday.

The tribunal bid comes 3 days aft the board's 2 Republican members voted Monday not to certify the results — contempt uncovering nary morganatic problems with the counts — turning a usually uneventful measurement successful the predetermination process into a intimately watched controversy.

The determination prompted aggregate lawsuits, including 1 by the state's caput of state, who has been waiting for the county's results to proceed with the statewide certification that is legally required to instrumentality spot adjacent week.

"I've had enough. I deliberation the public's had enough," said the board's Democratic chair, Ann English, who has supported certifying the results and asked the justice for a "swift resolution."

The justice said the instrumentality is "clear"

Citing authorities law, McGinley noted it is "clear" that the committee was "duty bound" to certify the results and taxable them to the caput of authorities by Monday fixed that nary results were missing from the county's totals.

McGinley said the committee "exceeded its lawful authorization successful delaying the canvass for a crushed that was not permitted by the statute."

The Republican region supervisors, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, had claimed they wanted to hold the certification retired of concerns astir the county's predetermination equipment, which authorities officials person confirmed were tested and decently certified.

During Thursday's hearing, however, an lawyer representing the challengers of different suit — brought against the committee by the nonprofit Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and a Cochise County elector — suggested those were arguments made successful atrocious religion by Crosby and Judd. The lawyer referenced comments Judd had made to The New York Times connected Monday that the claims astir voting instrumentality problems were "the lone happening we person to basal on" arsenic a screen for delaying certification successful bid to protestation the section certification of results successful Arizona's Maricopa County.

No lawyer was contiguous successful the courtroom Thursday to correspond the board, which had lone approved a last-minute prime of a instrumentality steadfast little than 2 hours earlier Thursday's hearing.

Crosby attempted to inquire the justice to hold proceedings until adjacent week successful bid to springiness their recently hired lawyer clip to drawback up connected the lawsuits, but McGinley rejected the petition aft uncovering that waiting is "not successful the involvement of justice."

The Arizona caput of state's bureau has been urging the region to implicit certification by Thursday successful bid to debar causing further delays to preparations for the statewide certification of midterm predetermination results. State officials person warned of the imaginable exclusion of the county's tens of thousands of votes from the authoritative results if they are not certified by the committee successful time.