Arizona GOP seeks to temporarily bar Maricopa Co. from certifying election results

Arizona’s state Republican Party has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to stop officials in Maricopa County, the most populous area of the state, from certifying its election results while legal challenges to the results are ongoing.

The Associated Press reported that attorneys for the Arizona GOP asked a judge on Monday night to temporarily bar the county from certifying its results until an audit of ballots can be done at the precinct level, a move previously done with GOP cooperation at the county level that resulted in no discrepancies being discovered.

County officials have argued that the suit should be dismissed, as an audit of ballots to determine if discrepancies exist between tabulated results and actual ballots was already performed.

The county’s elections supervisor told the AP that the move was meant to allow GOP attorneys more time to file challenges to the county’s results.

“It leaves a more open pathway for a challenge of the elections,” Ron Gould told the AP of postponing the final certification of results. “If we go ahead and canvas the election, then we’re saying we’re done, and that puts a different legal level on it.”

Arizona’s legal battles are just a handful of the efforts the Trump campaign has launched in several states seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which was called for his opponent, President-elect Joe Biden, by major news networks. The president’s campaign has argued that widespread voter fraud occurred in several key swing states, an allegation they have not yet substantiated with any evidence.

Legal efforts to overturn or halt the certification of results have yet to gain traction in any state, while officials in Georgia have begun a hand recount after Biden won the state by a slim margin.