Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democrat candidate for governor, threatened the Mohave County Board of Supervisors with felony charges if they did not certify the 2022 midterm election vote in their county.
Mohave County waited until Nov. 28 to certify its election and two of the supervisors on county board said they were voting to certify "under duress" after being warned they would "be arrested and charged with a felony" if they didn't, according to board chairman Ron Gould.
Hobbs was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin over Republican candidate Kari Lake. As secretary of state, Hobbs is the state’s top election official.
On Nov. 28, State Elections Director Kori Lorick emailed the Mohave County board, reminding the supervisors again of their "non-discretionary statutory duty to canvass the 2022 General Election results by today" and invoking the threat of prosecution of the holdouts.
"The only basis for delaying the county canvass is pursuant to A.R.S. 16-642(C) if returns from a polling place are missing, and that is indisputably not the case here," Lorick wrote. "If Mohave County does not perform their ministerial duty to canvass your election results today, we will have no other choice but to pursue legal action and seek fees and sanctions against the Board. Our office will take all legal action necessary to ensure that Arizona's voters have their votes counted, including referring the individual supervisors who vote not to certify for criminal enforcement under A.R.S. 16-1010."
Under the cited statute, an election official "who knowingly refuses to perform" their election duties "is guilty of a class 6 felony unless a different punishment for such act or omission is prescribed by law."
Gould said that Mohave County's election was problem-free, but the Board of Supervisors was concerned about the election issues in Maricopa County.
"We believe that Mohave County voters were disenfranchised by the problems that they had in Maricopa County," Gould said in an interview Wednesday on Real America's Voice TV's "The War Room."
"Their mistakes are bigger than our entire county vote, and I think it's disenfranchised the rural voters across the state, not to mention that it disenfranchises Maricopa County voters and Republican voters, in particular, who are more likely to cast their ballot at the poll" on Election Day, Gould said. "So any problems at the poll affect Republicans more than they would affect Democrats."
Had the board declined to certify its election, however, the county's votes would not have been included in the state total, Gould explained, which would have handed two Republican statewide seats to the Democrats. Moreover, lawsuits against the election results cannot move forward until the state has certified the election.
Related: Maricopa County ignores eyewitnesses, certifies its ‘election’, November 29, 2022
Arizona Republican state Rep. Jake Hoffman told Just the News on Thursday: "Katie Hobbs' threats directed at the Mohave County Supervisors is a gross abuse of power and highlight the dangerous conflict of interest that exists in allowing her to manage her own election. Hobbs has made it clear that she is willing to exploit every lever of power for her own personal gain — something that should deeply concern Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike."
Regarding the disenfranchisement of Arizona voters, Hoffman said: "Rural counties are rightly concerned that the singular point of systemic failure in this election — Maricopa County — contains more than 62% of the state's total electorate. This disproportionate control over the outcome of elections strips rural county voters of their voice when electing statewide public officials."
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