Attorney General Kris Mayes won’t be getting the punishments she sought for certain dissenters of the 2022 election results.
In a new memorandum decision from the court of appeals, GOP congressional candidate Abraham Hamadeh and Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby successfully argued their appeal to drop sanctions against them for challenging Maricopa County’s early ballot signature verification procedure in the 2022 election.
For their challenges against the 2022 election, Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes sought to have Hamadeh, Crosby, and Maricopa County Voter David Mast pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and sanctions.
Judge Susanna Pineda ruled that the claims brought by Hamadeh weren’t presented with deficiencies or misrepresentations. And, Pineda said the superior court was wrong to never give a reason for its sanctioning of Crosby and Mast. Sanctions may only occur when claims made are determined “groundless and not made in good faith.”
In Maricopa County, signature verification consisted of comparing signatures from 2022 ballots with those on early ballots from past elections. The county justified this method of signature verification by defining “historical reference signature” to include all past signatures from previous early ballots and any “election-related document[s],” and not signatures from voters’ registration records.
The appeals court refused to take up their challenges on Maricopa County’s signature verification for early ballots. Pineda ruled the challenge to be untimely. She said that the county gave Hamadeh, Crosby, Mast, and all other voters ample notice of their signature verification procedures prior to the election.
“Voters knew or should have known about this verification procedure before the election because Maricopa County disclosed all necessary information before the first ballot was cast,” said Pineda.
Even if the challenge was timely, said Pineda, there exists no “plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law” for addressing the challenge.
“Voters had at least two other remedies here: (1) a proper pre-election challenge to the signature verification procedure, and (2) a timely election challenge within five days of canvass,” wrote Pineda. “They pursued neither, so mandamus relief is unavailable.”
Hamadeh initially attempted to challenge Maricopa County’s signature verification in late November 2022, but the superior court dismissed that lawsuit because the county had yet to canvass its results. His second lawsuit filed December 2022 was dismissed, too, but for a different reason: the superior court said that the challenge was an untimely post-election challenge to a pre-election procedure.
Then Crosby and Mast sued over the signature verification process last September. Hamadeh followed with a third lawsuit that December. These two cases were consolidated into one.
Further on in her ruling, Pineda refused the challengers’ request for her to tie the hands of Maricopa County by barring them using mail-in ballot affidavits for signature verification in future elections. Pineda said that their request didn’t occur within the superior court, and therefore she would waive it on appeal.
Pineda called Hamadeh’s request to remove and replace Mayes, a sitting public official, with him (her challenger) an “extraordinary” ask, remarking that given he lacked the title necessary.
