Lawyers who filed one of the dubious cases in an unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election have filed a legal challenge to negate the signatures of 475,000 Arizonans who are petitioning to get the Arizona Fair Elections Act onto the November ballot.
The legal challenge was expected, as GOP attorneys often file subpoenas to large numbers of circulators, hoping they will not show up in court. In current law, a no-show results in all of the signatures collected by an individual being thrown out of court. Once the Initiative becomes law, the tactic will be outlawed and the judge will only strike signatures if the court finds a reason to remove them.
The Arizona Fair Elections Act cleans up some voter suppression measures in current Arizona statutes, gives Arizona one of the best voting laws in the United States and protects voting rights into the future.
If you would like to help, please contribute at ActBlue
Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile filed the lawsuit against the Fair Elections Act on behalf of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and two of its officers. In 2020, the pair of lawyers filed one of the many dubious suits on behalf of the Trump campaign.
Langhofer and Basile were among attorneys named in a Bar Association complaint at a time in 2020 when dozens of election suits were being filed on Trump’s behalf with little or no evidence. Langhofer was alleging that election workers were not properly handling ballots with “overvotes.” These involved circumstances where the voter had picked more candidates for an office than allowed.
After a daylong hearing, Langhofer acknowledged that there were not enough ballots in question to affect the election results. The Bar Association dropped proceedings against Langhofer and Basile, saying the timely move to drop the case showed they did not violate the rules of professional conduct.
In the current case, Langhofer is trying to get enough of the 475,000 signatures disqualified so that the number of valid signatures falls below 237,645.
He is faulting paid circulators, saying some failed to register with the Secretary of State, failed to provide affidavits, failed to provide correct addresses or unit numbers or contact information. He also alleges that some failed to provide their registration number on both the front and back of petitions.
And the most important point is that when our initiative passes, these baseless administrative challenges will no longer be standard operating procedure. Initiative signatures will be held to the same standard as candidate petition signatures. Massive subpoenas of all paid circulators will require probable cause.
The Secretary of State will complete her initial review of petitions today.
From there, she transmits the petitions to the county recorders for their offices to confirm validity of individual signatures. The county recorders have two weeks to check a 5-percent sample.
Meanwhile, the courts will sort through the challenge filed by the Free Enterprise Club.
The Arizona Fair Elections Act includes a number of provisions ranging from automatic and election-day registration to providing for disabled voters, to preventing the theft of Arizona’s electoral votes.
Additional challenges are expected.
If you would like to support our campaign financially, please give at ActBlue or write to me at Arizona Deserves Better, c/o Eric Kramer, 1910 Douglas Fir Dr., Pinetop, AZ 85935.
Our friends at Healthcare Rising also face litigation on their efforts to get a measures on the ballot to prevent abusive debt collection. I don’t know of any litigation against the initiative from Stop Dark Money, which will force the disclosure of the original source of political contributions.