Arizona Secretary of State Fontes Refuses to Accept HAVA Complaint About Election Discrepancies

Gail Golec, who unsuccessfully ran for Maricopa County Supervisor last year, and 10 other Arizonans filed a complaint with Arizona Secretary of State (AZSOS) Adrian Fontes last month alleging violations of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) during last year’s midterm election, but the office rejected it. The complaint followed the procedures laid out in federal statutes, however the AZSOS responded and said the complaint didn’t establish any violations to investigate under HAVA.

Golec told The Arizona Sun Times that her team drafted the complaint based on the language in HAVA, so it didn’t make any sense that the AZSOS claimed the election discrepancies weren’t covered by HAVA. She said the problem is fundamentally how the AZSOS is viewing elections, which she believes is dismissive of real complaints. “It’s not ‘fair and equal’ elections, it’s ‘free and equal’ per Article II Section 1 of the Constitution,” she said. “We’re going to turn the lights on to stop the gaslighting and take this country back.”

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Republicans Look to November as Concerns Linger over Ballot Tabulation Delays in Arizona

Although Arizona’s primary election was Tuesday, not all of the ballots have been counted yet, leaving the Arizona gubernatorial primary race for Republicans uncalled until Thursday evening. The Associated Press finally declared Trump-endorsed Kari Lake the winner, after Lake’s victory increased to 20,000, 46.78 percent to Karrin Taylor Robson’s 44.03 percent. By 1 p.m. on Thursday, there were still at least 242,414 outstanding ballots statewide. 

Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic Wednesday evening to discuss the slow results. At that time, only 82 percent of the ballots had been counted. Ward blamed incompetence by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. “France can count millions of ballots within hours of their election,” she pointed out, calling him a “disgrace.” (She retweeted the information about France) Ward said his office announced they would have more results to announce at 7 p.m. from the 125,000 outstanding ballots left from people who had dropped their ballots off at polling locations, but never did.

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