The Arizona Supreme Court refused to extend the state's deadline for voters to resolve mail-in voting issues because it found no evidence of disenfranchisement.
The Arizona Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Election Legal Center say thousands of mail-in ballots will not be processed until after Sunday's 5pm MST deadline, and some voters are experiencing problems with their ballots. He expressed concern that it will not be known until election day whether there will be a vote. It's too late to cure it.
The state Supreme Court denied the group's emergency motion filed Saturday seeking an extension of the statutory deadline. The petition asked the court to give voters a four-day grace period after being notified that their ballots were defective.
The court noted that the responding counties had not sought an extension and each argued that it had made reasonable efforts to notify voters whose signatures did not match.
“Therefore, the court has not been presented with any evidence that voters will be prevented from repairing their defective ballots by today's 5 p.m. deadline. In short, there is no evidence of disenfranchisement before the court.” said. court order Read.
The ACLU filed the petition along with the League of Latin American Citizens. The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed court papers opposing the request.
“The ACLU loses a last-minute Hail Mary lawsuit to extend remedies for mail-in ballots with mismatched signatures. Arizona has finished curing the ballots. Let's finish counting and wrap this up.” Harmeet Dhillon, head of the RNC, wrote about X.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R), who also filed a brief opposing the ACLU, said, “The court ruled as expected. The ACLU lost. We won.”
The Hill has reached out to the ACLU of Arizona for comment.
Before mail-in ballots are counted in Arizona, each county's recorder processes them and verifies the voter's signature. If a problem is discovered, state law requires officials to make reasonable efforts to notify voters and provide them with an opportunity to correct their ballots.
However, state law provides that voters have until five days after the election to cast a ballot.
As of Sunday, more than 67,000 early votes had yet to be processed, according to estimates from the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. The majority (57,000) are from Maricopa County, the state's most populous region, which includes Phoenix.
“All responding counties recommend that all such affected voters have received at least one phone call and other messages by email, text, or mail,” the court said. It's written in the command.
