AZ Supreme Court Affirms Ruling To Dismiss GOP Election Lawsuit

PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled to affirm the Maricopa County Superior Court's decision to dismiss the Arizona Republican Party's lawsuit seeking to overturn the state's election results.

Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward filed an appeal late Friday after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Steven Warner dismissed her lawsuit regarding duplicate ballots. Ward claimed that errors with duplicated ballots offer proof that the election should be overturned and the state's 11 Electoral College votes should go to President Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the expedited appeal ahead of Tuesday's "safe harbor" deadline and Monday's meeting of the Electoral College.

In their unanimous decision, the court determined that the challenge brought by the GOP "fails to present any evidence of 'misconduct,' 'illegal votes' or that the Biden Electors 'did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office,” let alone establish any degree of fraud or a sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election results."

The decision officially confirmed the election of the Biden Electors. The court did, however, deny Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs' request for attorney's fees in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit involved duplicate ballots in Maricopa County. A court-ordered sampling of 1,626 duplicated ballots found Trump lost seven votes due to errors in ballot processing in Maricopa County. An Arizona official estimated that the errors could have resulted in 103 votes that should have gone to Trump. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by over 10,000 votes and Arizona certified the results on Nov. 30.

In his decision, Warner wrote that Ward "has not proven that the Biden/Harris ticket did not receive the highest number of votes."

The Arizona Supreme Court concurred on Tuesday, writing that "the statistically negligible error presented in this case falls far short of warranting relief."

This is the sixth lawsuit challenging the Nov. 3 election results to be dismissed in court. Only one challenge remains, which a trial judge heard Tuesday.

The challenge alleges Arizona’s election systems have security flaws that let election workers and foreign countries manipulate results and that those systems switched votes from Trump to Biden.

Attorneys for the state’s election officials have said the lawsuit uses conspiracy theories to make wild allegations not backed up by any proof against Dominion Voting Systems, one of Maricopa County’s vendors for voting equipment, in its claims of widespread election fraud in the state.

Justin Nelson, an attorney who argued on behalf of Arizona election officials and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, characterized the lawsuit as “an attack on democracy.”

Those promoting the federal lawsuit have failed to show a connection between the widespread fraud they allege and their allegations that votes were changed from Trump to Biden in Arizona, Nelson said.

No evidence of voter or election fraud has been found in Arizona during this election.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.