Kelli Ward / Gage Skidmore/Flickr
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez | Arizona Republic
Two Republican activists are suing the Arizona Republican Party and its chair Kelli Ward over her refusals to allow an audit of the results and procedures used for the state party’s January elections.
In a complaint filed Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court, an attorney for William Beard and Sandra Dowling asked a judge to require the state party to explain why it shouldn’t conduct an audit, noting that further delay only makes the situation worse for Dowling while there is no harm at all to doing the audit.
“Without Court intervention, the audit simply will not happen,” attorney Tim La Sota argued in court papers. “… The balance of harm in this case could hardly be starker.”
The lawsuit comes after Ward repeatedly has rejected calls by GOP activists challenging her win to allow for a review of the results and the methods used during what they deemed a “chaotic” election process.
State party officials did not allow the media to cover the election process on Jan. 23, a departure from what had been standard, open-door practice.
