Attorney General Mark Brnovich /Gage Skidmore/Flickr
By Mary Jo Pitzl | Arizona Republic
The Republican Party has restarted its lawsuit to end early voting in Arizona, but the state won’t have a key official defending the practice: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has dropped out of the case.
The decision not to defend the early voting system came from a mutual agreement between the Republican Party of Arizona, which filed the complaint, and the Attorney General’s Office, court records show. It is not clear who initiated the move to leave the lawsuit.
“I’ll let the AG’s office comment on that,” said attorney Alexander Kolodin, who is representing the state party.
Brnovich’s office did not reply to a query about why he agreed to the move.
But in a filing to the Mohave County Superior Court, state Solicitor General Brunn W. Roysden III stated the Attorney General’s Office agrees to be bound by the outcome of the lawsuit, including any appeals.
The state GOP moved their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of early voting to Mohave County after the state Supreme Court last month declined to take up the matter, saying it needed to start in a lower court. A hearing is scheduled for June 3.
Early voting’s popularity has grown in the 30 years since it started in Arizona. Under the system, voters can get a ballot in the mail and return it by mail or drop it off at a polling place, an early-voting center or a ballot drop box. In 2020, nearly 90% of the ballots cast in Arizona were via early ballot.
In his March response to the filing with the state Supreme Court, Brnovich’s office noted that the suit “raises important questions about the constitutionality of Arizona’s early-voting system,” but objected to the filing on procedural grounds.
The dismissal leaves 16 other defendants to argue the case: the 15 county recorders and the office of Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Kolodin said at least one county recorder has indicated a hands-off approach to the defense, but has not sought to be dismissal from the litigation.
Hobbs, in a statement, called the attorney general’s exit predictable but upsetting.
“No one who has been paying attention for the past year could possibly be surprised that AG Brnovich is refusing to defend Arizona’s early voting system,” she wrote. “But his dereliction of duty is shocking nonetheless.”
