Maricopa County Judge DENIES Arizona GOP’s Request to Keep Polls Open: ‘No Evidence’ Any Voter Was Denied Right to Vote

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A judge in Maricopa County, Arizona rejected Republican efforts to keep the polls open later due to problems earlier in the day with some of the tabulation machines, pointing out that there was no evidence any voter was actually denied the right to vote.

The lawsuit had been filed by the Arizona Republican Party, joined by the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the campaigns for GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters and GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, and had requested that the end of voting hours be extended from 7 pm MT to 10 pm MT.

The issue with the tabulation machines was caused by a printer that did not print darkly enough for the machines to read the ballot, but it was resolved and no one was not able to vote, Maricopa County officials had pointed out, and they were able to fix the issue with the printers.

There are 223 voting precincts in Maricopa County and voters were select where they wanted to vote. The temporary problems with the tabulation machines affected about 60 of the voting centers, according to the Arizona Mirror, and voters were given the choice of having their ballot put into a secure box to be counted later at the supervisor of elections office, or to go to another nearby precinct.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tim Ryan rejected the Republicans’ claims after hearing Tuesday afternoon. “This court finds no evidence that voters were precluded from turning in ballots, although there was some confusion and some difficulties,” said Ryan.

The Republican plaintiffs had argued that the problems with the tabulation machines caused “untenably long lines,” resulting in some voters giving up and leaving, and also claimed that some voters who chose to go to another voting center had not been properly “checked out” of the first one, so it looked like they had already voted, and were either turned away or allowed to cast only a provisional ballot.

“But the Republican plaintiffs didn’t include any of those voters,” reported the Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers, “and the legal challenge didn’t mention any specific voters who were disenfranchised.”

“I don’t see that anyone wasn’t allowed to vote,” said the judge, rejecting the Republican argument.

Ryan also rejected the effort to extend voting hours based on the legal principle of laches, which bars a claim when it has been brought too late for relief to be granted.

The GOP lawsuit was filed shortly before 5 pm MT, according to the Mirror, and during the hearing, Maricopa County’s attorneys argued that it would be “impossible” to properly communicate with all the voting centers countywide with only about 15 minutes left before they were scheduled to close.

Ryan agreed that ordering the polls to stay open would be impossible, and issued his ruling at about 6:55 pm MT, five minutes before polls closed, that no extension would be granted.

The Maricopa County polls did indeed close as scheduled.

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