PHOENIX (AP) — Top Arizona officials certified the results of the midterm elections Monday, formalizing victories for Democrats over Republicans who falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged.
The certification opens a five-day window for official election challenges. Republican Kari Lake, who lost the gubernatorial race, is expected to file the lawsuit in the coming days after spending weeks criticizing the election administration.
Election results were largely certified without issue across the country, but Arizona was an exception. Several Republican-controlled counties have delayed their certification despite no evidence of vote-counting problems. Cochise County in southeastern Arizona missed the deadline last week, forcing a judge to step in Thursday and order county supervisors to certify the election by the end of the day.
“Arizona had a successful election,” said Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who defeated Lake in the governor’s race, before signing the certification. “But too many times during the process, powerful voices spread misinformation that threatened to target voters.”
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, pool
The statewide certification, known as canvass, was signed by Hobbs, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, a Ducey appointee.
When the same group certified the 2020 election, Ducey silenced a call from then-President Donald Trump, who at the time was making a frantic effort to get Republican allies to accept his attempts to overturn the election for those who lost it .
“This is a responsibility I do not take lightly,” Ducey said. “He is one who recognizes the votes cast by the citizens of our great state.”
Republicans have complained for weeks about Hobbs’ role in certifying their own victory, even though it’s common for election officials to endorse themselves while running for higher office. Lake and his allies focused on problems with the ballot printers, which produced about 17,000 ballots that could not be tabulated on site and had to be counted at the Elections Department headquarters.
Codes were kept at some polling stations, raising suspicions among Republicans that some supporters were unable to vote, although there is no evidence that they influenced the outcome. County officials say everyone was allowed to vote and all legal ballots were counted.
Hobbs immediately petitioned the Maricopa County Superior Court to initiate a statewide automatic recount required by law in three races decided by less than half a percentage point. The attorney general race was one of the closest races in state history, with Democrat Kris Mayes leading Republican Abe Hamadeh by just 510 of the 2.5 million votes cast.
Races for superintendent of public education and a state legislature in suburban Phoenix will also be reported, but the margins are much higher.
Once a Republican stronghold, Arizona’s top races went sensationally for Democrats after Republicans nominated a slate of Trump-backed candidates focused on supporting his false claims about the 2020 election. In addition to Hobbs and Mayes, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly was re-elected and Democrat Adrian Fontes won the race for Secretary of State.
This story has been corrected to show that Fontes was running for secretary of state, not attorney general, and that Arizona was once a Republican stronghold, not a Democratic one.
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