Getty Images
By Howard Fischer || Capitol Media Services
The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected the latest effort by a group of election deniers — the fourth from members of “We The People’’ — to void and rerun the 2020 vote.
And the justices spurned their requests to let an out-of-state lawyer not licensed to practice here represent them despite their claim no Arizona lawyer is willing to take the job.
In a new order, Justice Ann Scott Timmer, writing for the court, said the challengers want not only to recall the state’s 11 electors who voted for Biden but also to order Maricopa County to have another presidential election.
But that’s not all.
They want this new election on paper ballots only, counted by hand, without “no excuse’’ mail-in ballots. That is based, at least in part, that the equipment used to count the ballots had not been lawfully certified and tested, making any election conducted with them void from the start.
What’s lacking in the latest legal filing, Timmer said, is any legal basis for seeking to rescind a prior election or remove elected officials, which electors are, from office.
It starts, she said, with the fact that the challenge comes far too late.
“The laws of Arizona set forth processes for contesting an election — a process that requires the filing of a contests within five days after the canvass of the election,’’ Timmer wrote. And that occurred at the end of November 2020.
“The failure of a contestant to an election to strictly comply with the statutory requirements is fatal to his right to have the election contested,’’ she said. “The rationale for requiring strict compliance with the time provisions for initiating a contest is the strong public policy favoring stability and finality of election results.’’
Nor were the justices any more impressed by the arguments, prepared with the assistance of a Florida attorney, that they have the power to ignore the law.
“This court … observes that petitioners have cited no authority for the proposition that they or anyone else may overturn the Arizona statutes that govern both the conduct of elections and the challenges to the results of such elections,’’ Timmer said. “Likewise, they cannot dictate the terms of a proposed effort to ‘rerun the 2020 presidential election’ which was certified almost two years ago.’’
The new order represents the latest in what is becoming a string of defeats for We The People to alter past elections.
