Rep. Mark Finchem, a Republican running for secretary of state, filed a lawsuit on November 8 challenging the results of his election, but the judge in Arizona’s Superior Court dismissed it, according to Fox News.
Earlier this month, Finchem and congressional candidate Jeff Zink, who later withdrew, sued Katie Hobbs, the incumbent secretary of state, Rep. Ruben Gallego, and Adrian Fontes, Finchem’s opponent for the position of secretary of state.
A change in the anticipated number of votes still to be counted on the secretary of state website, according to Finchem, showed that unauthorized votes had been cast. Finchem also stated that there had been “misconduct” surrounding the election and issues with official machinery.
According to Judge Melissa Julian’s judgment, which was made public on Friday, Arizona law does not permit an election challenge to be pursued based only on a generalized feeling of discomfort.
She claimed that Finchem’s arguments regarding technical matters were equally unpersuasive.
Finchem provides no legal justification for the court to throw out a HAVA certification for voting software that has already been granted by a recognized testing facility. Federal and state laws do not allow this court to challenge accredited laboratories’ technical judgments.
According to the judge, claims of “tabulating machine breakdowns” pose a threat to electoral operations.
Any claims made by Finchem that votes cast on them are invalid because Pro V&V or SLI Compliance were used to test tabulators or software have already been rejected by this court. According to Julian, Finchem’s assertion that there were “illegal votes” is unsupported by any asserted fact and does not qualify as a claim under 16-672(A)(4).
Additionally, the judge rejected Finchem’s allegations of “misconduct” in his election challenges.
Hobbs’ “ethical duty to rescue herself” was another claim made in Finchem’s case, to which Julian retorted that the claims were “not well pled facts.”
She ruled that the lawsuit will be permanently dismissed “with prejudice.”
The judge granted the requests for dismissal that Fontes and Hobbs had each submitted. The judge also granted a request for sanctions from their respective counsel, giving them 10 days to submit their demand.
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