JUST-IN: America First Legal Files Landmark Lawsuit Against Maricopa County, Arizona Officials for Violating State Election Laws – FILING INCLUDED

America First Legal (AFL), on behalf of Strong Communities Action and Eric Lovelis, has filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County over its failure “to administer elections lawfully and fairly” in the last two elections.

Maricopa County, which holds roughly 60% of the state’s voting population, is largely considered the bellwether county for Arizona elections.

The complaint seeks several forms of relief to force the County’s compliance with election laws, including those relating to signature verification, ballot chain of custody, voting machines, ballot printers, and racial equality, ahead of the 2024 election.

The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively on the stolen 2020 and 2022 elections in Arizona. In both elections, thousands of ballots with no chain of custody documentation or signature identity verification were seemingly added to the results out of nowhere.

As The Gateway Pundit exclusively reported, a review of mail-in ballot affidavit signatures, when compared to voter registration records, showed that roughly ten percent of mail-in ballots were likely fraudulent with voter identity theft. View the fraudulent mail-in ballot signatures here:

TGP EXCLUSIVE: Limited Maricopa County 2022 Ballot Signature Review Shows Obviously Mismatched Signatures Accepted at Level One – VIEW RECORDS HERE

Similarly, election watchdog group We The People AZ Alliance, after an extensive review of hundreds of thousands of 2020 election mail-in ballots, discovered that 300,000 potentially fraudulent votes were not signature verified in accordance with the law.

Maricopa County denied Kari Lake’s legal team access to voter signatures from 2022 and prior, claiming it was “in the best interest of the state.”

As seen in the 2022 general election, voting machine and printer failures at 60% of voting locations disenfranchised Republican in-person voters who turned out at a ratio of 3:1 to vote for Trump-Endorsed candidates Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh. Kari Lake’s attorneys argued that these were intentional errors caused by malfeasance and falsely certified logic and accuracy testing prior to election day.

Additionally, thousands of in-person provisional ballots across the state were not counted due to wrongfully canceled voter registrations without the voters’ knowledge.

The lawsuit also argues that Maricopa County’s “choice of location for voting centers has a discriminatory effect and/or disparate impact on White and Native American voters.” 

The filing states, “Voters in Maricopa County who reside in dense urban areas are more likely to vote early by mail than in person on election day. However, the Defendants have concentrated voting centers disproportionately in urban areas where they are less likely to be used.” This has the effect of unlawfully making it “easier for Hispanics and Blacks to vote and more difficult for Whites and Native Americans.”

In an X thread on Wednesday, America First Legal outlined the suit’s allegations:

/2 AFL represents the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Eric Lovelis. The suit alleges:
-Maricopa County refuses to maintain the mandatory chain of custody for ballots. In 2022, these failures resulted in a discrepancy of over 25,000 votes – larger than the margin of…

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) February 7, 2024

AFL issued the following press release. Read the full lawsuit below:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday evening, on behalf of the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Eric Lovelis, America First Legal (AFL) filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County, Arizona officials for violating State election administration laws. The suit alleges:

• Maricopa County refuses to maintain the mandatory chain of custody for ballots. In 2022, these failures resulted in a discrepancy of over 25,000 votes – larger than the margin of victory in the state governor’s race.
• Maricopa County ignores mandatory reconciliation procedures to track each ballot printed or issued to a voter. The law requires tracking and reconciling ballots cast and voters checked in to stop fraud, but the Defendants do not perform any reconciliation procedures at all.
• Maricopa County’s election day “voting centers” – an irrational substitute for election day precinct voting – are situated in a racially discriminatory way, having a disparate impact on the County’s White and Native American citizens who are more likely to vote in person. Furthermore, these centers are poorly run; during the 2022 general election, a majority had issues with their ballot-on-demand printers. Malfunctions included printing 19-inch ballot images on 20-inch paper and/or using an ink-saving “eco” function that rendered ballots unreadable, disenfranchising lawful voters.
• Arizona law requires that “the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections shall compare the signatures [on early ballots] with the signature of the elector on the elector’s registration record.” In other words, human beings—and only human beings—may perform signature verification. However, in 2020 Maricopa County used what it called “the AI signature process” and the “AI process” to run signature comparisons. The County renewed the “AI” contract for 2024.
• Starting in 2020, the Defendants have been wrongly canceling the voter registrations of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Maricopa County residents. This has been happening without voters’ knowledge, thus making it impossible for canceled voters to protest. Thus, during the 2022 election, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of voters appeared at voting centers and were told that they were no longer registered to vote in Maricopa County, even though they had not moved away, had not knowingly requested that their registration be canceled or transferred, had not consented to the cancellation of their registration, and had never been informed of the cancellation of their registration. These voters were forced to cast provisional ballots, which the Defendants never counted. The number of voters disenfranchised during the 2022 general election by the Defendants’ unlawful cancellations was larger than the margin of victory in some races.
• Maricopa County violates state laws mandating ballot curing procedures that require that a voter actually see a suspect signature and confirm its authenticity in person.
• Arizona law requires ballot drop boxes to be staffed by at least two election officials positioned close enough to view each person who deposits ballots into it. Maintaining an unstaffed drop box is a felony. However, Maricopa County maintains unstaffed, unsupervised ballot drop boxes, facilitating illegal ballot harvesting.

For years, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the County Recorder have consistently failed to lawfully and fairly administer elections in Maricopa County. These individuals are fully aware of their election law violations, yet they have consistently failed to take any action to rectify them. This action has been filed to prevent the November 5, 2024, election from being tainted with the same mistakes and maladministration that occurred during the 2020 and 2022 elections.

America First Legal will continue fighting for fair elections, and to protect the right of every American citizen to have their lawful vote counted.

Statement from James Rogers, America First Legal Counsel:

“The legitimacy of our government relies on the people’s trust that elections are free and fair. Maricopa County’s errors, lapses, and mistakes in administering elections have seriously eroded that trust. This lawsuit seeks to hold Maricopa County accountable for its failures and to restore Arizonans’ trust in their elections, “ said James Rogers.

Read the lawsuit here.

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Read the full complaint below: