Arizona Court Rejects Election-Denial Lawsuit, Upholds Trust in State’s Voting System

An Arizona appeals court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould that tried to defend a plan to hand-count every ballot — a proposal rooted in election denial rhetoric that has spread through swing states since 2020.

The ruling affirms that Arizona’s elections will continue to follow the law and rely on certified voting machines, not GOP-driven skepticism.

The case began after Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) warned county officials that such a move would be illegal under state law.

“An illegally expanded hand count may result in various felony and misdemeanor criminal penalties,” Mayes wrote in a November 2023 letter to the board. “We hope you will choose not to violate the law and thus that it will not be necessary for us to consider whether criminal prosecution is warranted for conducting an illegal hand count.”

Gould later sued, claiming Mayes’ warning “influenced the vote” and that he faced a “real threat” of “individual criminal prosecution for his past and proposed legislative voting.” He argued he was “protected from prosecution merely for voting to conduct tabulation of votes by hand count.”

The court rejected those arguments outright, finding no evidence of a real or immediate threat. It ruled that the attorney general’s letter did not reflect “a specific threat of prosecution” and that Gould had not shown any actual harm.

“The declaratory judgment statutes cannot be used to make the courts a fountain of advice for the future conduct of our citizens,” the court wrote. “As explained above, Gould has neither challenged the validity of any election statute nor demonstrated a real, non-speculative threat of prosecution.”

The ruling leaves intact Arizona’s existing election system — one that uses certified tabulation machines and allows only limited hand-count audits to verify results.

This decision arrives amid broader pressure on Arizona counties to adopt full hand counts, driven by election-denying activists. Those efforts repeatedly face legal and logistical obstacles.

A previous GOP hand-count attempt in Arizona found that doing so would cost more than $1 million and take hundreds of days. The plan was abandoned by Arizona Republicans.

The outcome of this case is another clear rejection of efforts to undermine confidence in elections. By upholding state law and rejecting conspiracy-driven challenges, the court reaffirmed that Arizona’s elections remain secure and publicly trusted.