PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court on Sunday declined to extend the deadline for voters to fix problems with ballots, a day after voter rights groups cited reports of delays in counting votes and notifying voters with problem signatures.
The court said Sunday that election officials in eight of the state’s 15 counties reported that all voters with “inconsistent signatures” had been properly notified and given an opportunity to respond.
Arizona law requires that people who vote by mail be notified of problems, such as a signature on the ballot that doesn’t match the signature on file, and given a “reasonable” opportunity to correct it. correct in a process known as ‘healing’.
“The Court has no information indicating that such individuals have not had the benefit of ‘reasonable efforts’ to recover their ballots,” wrote Judge Bill Montgomery, who served as associate justice for the seven-member court. He noted that no responding provinces requested an extension of time.
“In short, there is no evidence that the Court disenfranchised him,” the court order said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center on Saturday named registrars, including Stephen Richer in Maricopa County, in a petition seeking an emergency injunction to extend the original deadline of Sunday at 5 p.m. MST by up to four days . Maricopa is the state’s most populous county and includes Phoenix.
The groups said that as of Friday evening, more than 250,000 ballots had not yet been verified by signature, with the majority of them in Maricopa County. They argued that tens of thousands of Arizona voters could be disenfranchised.
Montgomery, a Republican appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2019 by former GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, said the eight counties that responded — including Maricopa — said “all of these affected voters” had received at least one phone call “along with other email messages, text or post .”
However, he noted that the Navajo Nation had informed the court that the list of tribal members in Apache County scheduled to have their voting rights restored on Saturday included more than 182 people.
Maricopa County reported early Sunday that it had about that 202,000 ballots has yet to be counted. This was reported by the Secretary of State of Arizona more than 3 million Votes were cast in the elections.