by Daniel Stefanski | Oct 21, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
National and local Republicans are pulling out all the stops to protect election integrity in the critical swing-state of Arizona for the upcoming November contest.
Last week, the Donald J. Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the creation of a new Election Integrity team in Arizona. The team will be shepherded by Harmeet Dhillon. According to the press release issued by the coalition, the team “will stop Democrat interference and secure Arizona’s elections.”
“We are proud to announce President Trump’s appointment of Harmeet Dhillon as our new legal counsel in Arizona,” said Trump Campaign Managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump. “She will spearhead critical legal battles, stop the many attacks on the integrity of our elections, and lead our winning election integrity team to Protect the Vote. Election Integrity is the top priority for President Trump, his campaign, and the RNC, and with a fair and secure election Arizona will send President Trump back to the White House. Harmeet is an unmatched force for Election Integrity and will lead the fight, and win, to secure Arizona’s elections – for our country’s most important election.”
Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda added, “Arizona is the battleground for this election, and Harmeet is ready to lead the fight. We are committed to an honest and secure election system, that counts every legal vote properly. Arizonans, and Americans, deserve nothing less, and we are full steam ahead in our unprecedented dedication to Election Integrity.”
After the revelation about her appointment, Dhillon said, “I’m happy to report that after meeting and speaking with state party and candidates and outside volunteer groups and Arizona lawyers, we are in better shape this cycle than ever before and on a strong legal and political footing for Republican victory in AZ.”
Early voting in Arizona is now officially underway across the state with ballots hitting mailboxes and voters frequenting sites to cast their ballots ahead of the November 5 General Election. Besides the contest for President of the United States, Arizona features other pivotal races, including U.S. Senate, state legislature seats that could determine party control of either chamber, and constitutional amendments with key implications for the future of the state.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Nov 9, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
A court ruled against a request to extend Maricopa County polling hours despite mass voting machine failures, after Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) petitioned to reject the request. Kelly is in a highly contested race against one of the GOP candidates that filed suit, Republican challenger Blake Masters.
Two Republican candidates, Masters and Kari Lake, filed an emergency request on Tuesday afternoon to extend the polling hours to 10 pm, after the mass failure of tabulation machines across the county for over eight hours. This extensive failure resulted in issues such as voters spoiling ballots, leaving without voting, or unwillingly casting a provisional ballot.
One of the lawyers that filed the case, Harmeet Dhillon remarked that Kelly’s intervention was hypocrisy given his public commitments to thwarting voter disenfranchisement.
“Goes to show you that Democrats’ platitudes about voting rights are often situational, at best,” said Dhillon.
A lawyer for the Arizona GOP, Alex Kolodin, called the court’s rejection “unfortunate” in an interview with “The Conservative Circus.” Kolodin shared that frustrated voters left polls, or were forced to cast a provisional ballot after they checked in at a malfunctioning vote center. The law doesn’t allow for voters to cast a ballot at another polling location after they’ve checked in at one location.
“The campaigns tried to explain to the judge that this was a very unique situation with this widespread issue where voters really were deprived of the right to vote and that made it a unique circumstance that warranted keeping the polls open a couple extra hours,” said Kolodin.
Kolodin said that at least 33 to 40 percent of vote centers were affected by tabulation machine failures. Kolodin stated that the timing marks on the ballots likely weren’t printed properly, which meant the tabulators couldn’t read them.
Kolodin added that printers have been a major issue for Maricopa County since the 2020 election, and were at the root of the SharpieGate controversy.
“It’s funny, the county has known about ballot printing issues for two years,” said Kolodin.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Jun 21, 2022 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Thursday, a district court judge denied a mother’s motion to dismiss in a lawsuit filed against her by the creator of a dossier on parents who opposed his son’s tenure as school board president. The mother leaked the dossier, located on a Google Drive, to local reporters after noticing the URL in pictures sent to her by the school board president.
Mark Greenburg — father of the former board president of Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) who had access to the dossier, Jann-Michael Greenburg — sued SUSD parents Amanda and Daniel Wray for allegedly violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal law on unauthorized computer access. The Wrays countered by filing an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss, which claims that a lawsuit is filed strategically to prevent public participation. Judge Douglas Rayes, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, denied the Wrays’ motion to dismiss.
Rayes said his decision was a “close call.” He acknowledged that the elder Greenburg lacked a password protection on the Google Drive, therefore making it accessible to anyone with its link. However, Rayes agreed with the elder Greenburg’s argument that this lack of security didn’t render the Google Drive dossier open to the public, and that Wray’s inadvertent discovery of the URL didn’t give her authorization to access the dossier.
The Rayes declared that the elder Greenburg “sufficiently plead the elements of a violation” of the CFAA. He established a scheduling conference on July 7 at 11 am, with a deadline for a revised proposed discovery plan on June 30.
Wray deferred to her counsel for comment.
In a statement to AZ Free News, Harmeet Dhillon — the managing partner of Dhillon Law Group representing Wray — clarified that the judge’s decision only reflected Greenburg’s allegations and didn’t constitute Rayes’ final decision on the case.
“A motion to dismiss is typically made at the outset of most cases in federal court, and it is a test not of the facts of the case, but rather of the plaintiff’s allegations,” said Dhillon. “While we respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling and believe the law requires dismissal at this stage, we look forward to the discovery phase of the lawsuit and to establishing the actual facts in this case.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
