During oral arguments Tuesday, it was difficult at times to know whether the attorney for several Arizona Republicans seeking to de-certify the state’s 2020 General Election results was talking about election fraud here or in other states.
The 11 Republican Electors selected to cast Arizona’s electoral votes for President Donald Trump had he won the state filed a federal lawsuit last week seeking to invalidate former Vice President Joe Biden’s 10,457 vote victory. Gov. Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and Maricopa County contend the case should be dismissed due to procedural defects and other legal shortcomings.
But before U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa can consider the merits of the Republicans’ claims, she must first determine whether it’s appropriate for the U.S. District Court to hear the case. And whether the 11 plaintiffs have standing to seek relief and if their claims “fall within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question.”
Tuesday’s hearing was called by Humetewa for arguments limited to the motions for dismissal and why she had authority to keep the case in a federal court. The plaintiffs were represented at the hearing by Julia Haller, one of several attorneys working with Sidney Powell, who is involved in election challenges in Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin where Biden was also declared the winner.
However, Haller spent much of her allotted time talking about the evidence the plaintiffs contend “proves” Trump was the true winner in Arizona. She also referred to witnesses who can testify to “significant tampering with the tally” and to Trump votes being “switched” to Biden.
Haller also spent a lot of time telling Humetewa about why the election results in other states are invalid.
Phoenix-based lawyer Alex Kolodin is another of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. He has been involved in several election-related legal actions in recent months, including one which resulted in Maricopa County being ordered to pay nearly $58,000 in attorneys’ fees for trying to ignore an approved election procedure.
Kolodin declined to comment on why he wasn’t the one to argue the case to Humetewa. He did say he was pleased with the judge’s handling of Tuesday’s hearing.
“The judge seemed very fair,” Kolodin said. “She gave fair treatment to both sides and seemed to take the issues very seriously.”
More than 3.4 million ballots were counted in Arizona during the 2020 general election, of which more than 2.1 million were in Maricopa County. If the judge allows the Republican Electors’ case to move forward, she will conduct an evidentiary hearing Thursday on whether to issue any relief to the plaintiffs.
Such relief could include a temporary restraining order which would potentially keep Arizona’s 11 electoral votes from being awarded to any candidate when the U.S. Electoral College meets Dec. 14.
One party whose opinion will not be considered by Humetewa is that of the Arizona Democratic Party, whose own 11 Electors are currently slated to cast the state’s elector votes for Biden. The denied the Democrats’ motion to intervene in the case, although the judge’s reasoning has not yet been announced.
In her motion to dismiss, Hobbs argues that the federal election complaint filed by the Republicans Electors “is the latest in a series of frivolous lawsuits with nearly identical allegations” filed by the same attorneys in other states won by Biden.
“All four lawsuits allege that thousands of elections officials somehow orchestrated a transnational conspiracy to steal an election by manufacturing votes and improperly counting votes, supported by nary a shred of credible evidence,” the motion states, referring to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Humetewa will issue her ruling by Wednesday afternoon on whether the Republicans’ case goes forward to the evidentiary hearing.
Among the expected witnesses for the plaintiffs are State Rep. Kelly Townsend, Maricopa County Republican Party chair Linda Brickman, and Greg Wodynski, an election observer whose concerns as a whistleblower about a lack of election integrity were reported last month by Arizona Daily Independent.