America First Legal (AFL) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Maricopa County, alleging numerous violations of election law since 2020. Some of the issues raised in the complaint were brought up in similar lawsuits brought around the country challenging irregularities in the 2020 election, where judges found they had merit.
The AFL listed eight issues in its complaint, and mainly asked for declaratory judgment to stop the county from repeating the wrongdoing and comply with law. The first was lack of chain of custody for tens of thousands of ballots, a class 2 misdemeanor. The second was failure to conduct reconciliation as required by law, which refers to comparing the number of votes cast at polling centers to the number of voters who checked in. The third was the failure of the voting center printers, disenfranchising voters. The fourth was the racially discriminatory location of vote centers, disadvantaging Native Americans and whites who lived farther from the locations than others.
The fifth was the use of AI to assist with signature verification, since state law requires human verification. The sixth was the unauthorized cancellation of thousands of voter registrations, as voters discovered their registration had been transferred to other counties when they went to vote. The seventh alleged unlawful curing of ballots, where workers called voters without verifying it was really them. Finally, the complaint cited unstaffed ballot drop boxes, violating Arizona law.
In Genetski & MI GOP v. Benson, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated state law by adding guidance to the signature verification procedures that was not authorized by statutes. Benson added instructions to the state’s signature verification standards which told reviewers to operate from a presumption that the signatures are valid, and find “any redeeming qualities” for signatures.
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