Deja Vu: After Arizona Supreme Court Dismisses Fringe Lawsuit, Similar Case Seeks To Decertify 2022 Election Results
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday Sept. 6, two voters and a lawyer who have been extremely involved in the effort to decertify Arizona’s 2022 general election filed a new lawsuit seeking to decertify the Maricopa County results for four races: governor, attorney general and Propositions 308 and 309.
The lawsuit, filed by Ryan Heath — who filed three unsuccessful election lawsuits after the 2022 midterms — alleges that Maricopa County failed to comply with the Arizona law that governs signature verification.
The plaintiffs allege that Maricopa County matched voters’ signatures to the most recent “historical signature” instead of the signature on the voter’s registration record, resulting in hundreds of “illegal votes.” The plaintiffs argue that “the mere inclusion of a convincing number of illegal votes in violation of the plain language and intent of [Arizona law]” violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights under both the Arizona Constitution and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
This lawsuit was filed just two weeks after the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit filed by the same plaintiffs who are not strangers to election subversion. One of the plaintiffs is current Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby (R). Although Crosby filed the lawsuit in his personal capacity, as a Cochise County voter, it is quite extraordinary that a sitting county official is attempting yet again to overturn election results far beyond the certification of the 2022 election. Not only is this the second lawsuit in which Crosby is seeking to decertify valid election results, but Crosby also led Cochise County’s election subversion efforts throughout 2022.
Before, during and after the 2022 midterm elections, Cochise County (a small red county in Arizona) was embroiled in controversy and faced several lawsuits after the county supervisors attempted different hand counts, sued their own election director, refused to certify the results of the election and transferred election oversight to the partisan county recorder. Crosby led the effort to descend the county’s elections into chaos by voting to conduct an illegal hand count of all early mail-in ballots, refusing to certify the 2022 election results and filing a lawsuit against his own colleague who later resigned citing an “outrageous and physically and emotionally threatening” working atmosphere.
The second plaintiff, David Mast, was also a plaintiff in the recently dismissed lawsuit seeking to decertify the 2022 election results. Mast, with the help of Heath, also previously submitted an amicus brief in Kari Lake’s election contest arguing that the 2022 election results for Arizona governor should be “set aside.”
This lawsuit is the the latest anti-voting lawsuit in a flurry of post-election litigation brought by election deniers and their allies — many of whom have been sanctioned by courts for their conduct — after pro-democracy Democrats won key elections for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in Arizona in 2022. In addition to this lawsuit, Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh are separately still contesting the results of their elections in court.