By Matthew Holloway |
Earlier this week, a court-appointed Special Master confirmed that nearly 40,000 initiative signatures were duplicates and thus invalid. But on Thursday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz still ruled that, because Proposition 140 cannot be removed from the ballot, votes for the Ranked Choice Voting and Open Primary initiative will be counted.
The court’s affirmation of the initiative, despite Petition Signature Fraud being proven, sent shockwaves through the Arizona political scene.
Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi released a statement following the ruling, openly accusing Moskowitz of bias in favor of the initiative.
“From the moment he was unanimously rebuked by the AZ Supreme Court for blocking the removal of nearly 40,000 duplicate signatures, Judge Moskowitz has been trying to find a way to place Prop 140 on the ballot, irrespective of whether it had enough signatures to qualify. Today he issued a ruling manufacturing that outcome, deciding that the statutory method for determining the number of valid signatures for ballot initiatives is now unconstitutional. He made this radical determination despite the fact that the statute Moskowitz invalidated is nearly 30 years old and was reviewed and upheld against a constitutional challenge by the AZ Supreme Court in 2022 (Mussi v Hobbs).”
Prior to Moskowitz’s ruling, Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Timmer ordered that if the Special Master ruled the signatures invalid, then the Make Elections Fair PAC would be permitted to argue against enjoining the vote count on grounds that court precedent typically required ruling prior to ballot printing, something not required in statute.
This ruling would appear to validate concerns many opponents of the Proposition have voiced, that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, defending legal council, and Moskowitz himself all sought to deliberately slow-roll the court proceedings beyond the printing date to ‘run out the clock’ and force the vote through.
In the ruling AZFEC deemed “radical” in a post to X, Moskowitz claimed that the confirmation of duplicated, invalid signatures was “moot,” having passed the printing deadline. He curiously cited a statute NOT being present in his justification and leaned purely on case law. He wrote, “Although there is no statutory authority for the proposition that petition challenges must end before ballot printing begins, there is case law that supports such a ‘bright light’ end to such litigation.”
He continued, “Here, the time pressures were such that not every duplicate signature was reviewed and verified by clear and convincing evidence before the August 23, 2024 ballot printing deadline, such that the underlying action is moot as of that deadline.”
In a staggering move, Moskowitz claimed that the court cannot grant injunction against counting the signatures, citing “Perhaps the absence of such express authority in statute,” as expressing the intent of the legislature.
In full he wrote, “That is not a sufficient basis for this Court to grant such a remedy, especially given the injunction allowable under (the law), the statute upon which Plaintiffs initially brought this action, does not include enjoining the canvassing of votes,” Moskowitz wrote. “Perhaps the absence of such express authority in statute is because the Legislature never intended for initiative challenges to go past the ballot printing deadline.”
Mussi wrote in the AZFEC statement that the organization intends to bring the matter to the State Supreme Court once again, “The bottom line is that after the removal of the duplicate signatures, Prop 140 lacks the required number of valid signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. The committee behind the measure was aware of this fact, which is why they obstructed and delayed the review of the duplicate signatures for over a month.
We are confident that after a careful review of the facts, ruling, and trial court record, the AZ Supreme Court will again overturn this outrageous ruling by Judge Moskowitz and enjoin Prop 140 from being tabulated.”
Matthew Holloway is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
