A Republican-led Arizona county plans to appeal a court ruling that blocked its planned hand count audit of ballots cast in this year’s consequential midterm elections.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted 2-1 Wednesday to lodge the appeal.
The decision comes as key races in Arizona – including contests for governor and a US Senate seat – remain too close to call.
And the action underscores how much distrust of electronic vote-tallying machines has taken root in parts of the country, following the 2020 presidential election and false claims that widespread fraud contributed to former President Donald Trump’s loss in the state.
Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley had blocked the county’s plan earlier this week, ruling that undertaking a broad hand count as a way to check the accuracy of those machines violates state law – which he said permits election officials to audit only a small percentage of ballots by hand.
The proponents of the hand count argued that it “would help ameliorate fears that the electronic count was incorrect,” McGinley wrote in his 12-page opinion. “However, there is no evidence before this Court that electronic tabulation is inaccurate in the first instance, or more importantly, that the audit system established by law is insufficient to detect any inaccuracy it may possess.”
It is unclear how consequential the appeal will be to the overall certification of the vote in Arizona.
A brief submitted on behalf of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat running for governor, argued that hand counting — if not completed quickly — could potentially delay the certification of election results.
Her brief noted the statutory deadlines that election officials face for certifying the results, which include a deadline for the county to canvass the results by 20 days after the election and a deadline for the secretary to then complete the statewide canvass by the fourth Monday after election day.
“Counting just a few races, much less dozens of races, on tens of thousands of ballots by hand is extremely time-intensive, tedious, and prone to human error,” Hobbs wrote in the brief. “This would be a massive project, for which the extensive planning and preparation required would have been a major effort even if it began months before the election.”
Arizona counties must certify their election results by Nov. 28. The state’s certification deadline is Dec. 5.
There are more than 80,000 registered voters in Cochise County, which lies in the southeastern corner of the state and includes the city of Bisbee.
