Maricopa County Judge Dismisses Trump Campaign Lawsuit

PHOENIX — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from President Donald Trump's campaign after the campaign's lawyers acknowledged that the small number of ballots at play wouldn't change the outcome of Arizona's presidential election. President-elect Joe Biden's lead in the state now surpasses the number of votes left to count.

The campaign had sought to postpone Maricopa County’s certification of election results until ballots containing overvotes — instances in which people voted for more candidates than permitted — were inspected by hand. The lawsuit alleged that thousands of metro-Phoenix votes were "incorrectly rejected" on Election Day.

During a brief afternoon hearing, the parties agreed the 432 ballots Maricopa County had left to record and upload were unlikely to change the outcomes of any results.

"The plaintiffs' claims are dismissed as moot," Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley said, according to the Arizona Republic.

Only 191 overvotes were cast in the presidential race in Maricopa County, attorneys for the defendants — Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors — argued in court. Democrat Joe Biden has an advantage of nearly 11,000 votes over Trump in Arizona, with just 6,600 ballots left to count across the state.

Arizona's recount rules require a difference of fewer than 200 votes.

Attorneys for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign dialed back their previous election fraud in a Thursday hearing.

Trump campaign attorney Kory Langhofer told Kiley that the lawsuit challenged good-faith errors made in the counting of ballots.

“We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit,” Langhofer said. “We are not alleging that anyone is stealing the election here.”

Things such as stray markings cause tabulation machines to register a ballot as an overvote and are programmed to alert voters when that happens. Election tabulation machines allow options for a green "cast" button and a "spoil" option in which voters can disregard the ballot and start over if issues like that arise. Voters could then choose to "spoil" the ballot and request a replacement, or cast the original ballot with the warning that overvotes may not be counted.

The Trump campaign's lawsuit alleged that election workers either pressed, or in some cases induced voters to press, the green button so those ballots would not be counted. A handful of voters signed affidavits as part of the lawsuit, according to the Arizona Republic.

The Maricopa County lawsuit is one of many that the campaign has filed in battleground states in recent days, including in Pennsylvania. Like this one, lawsuits in Michigan and Wisconsin have also been dismissed.

Prior to Thursday's oral arguments, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley had ruled to unseal evidence in the case; county officials redacted personal information from voter declarations. He also dismissed evidence collected online through a since-deleted website. Langhofer acknowledged some of the online declarations were found to be false but noted those entries had been removed, saying his team had cross-referenced the remaining declarations to ensure voters were where they said they were on Election Day.

Maricopa County attorneys argued that the voters' testimony did not serve to prove broad, widespread issues at polling places. None could say for sure that their vote wasn't counted.

One of the voters in question, Laura Christians, said her father, who served as a poll worker for more than 35 years, told her that the process she witnessed was incorrect.

“I kind of put my own hypothesis together. I don’t know if my vote was counted or did not count,” Christians said.

Attorneys representing election officials argued Thursday that the campaign had not proven systematic errors and sought to dismiss the lawsuit altogether.

With the dismissal of Trump’s lawsuit, Arizona has just one remaining legal challenge over the Nov. 3 election results.

In a lawsuit filed late Thursday, the Arizona Republican Party sought to force the county to hand count votes separated by precinct instead of counting them by voting center.

It’s unclear whether the party is seeking a new audit or a re-tabulation of the audit that the county completed on Nov. 9.

A hearing is scheduled Monday in the case.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.