Arizona Sheriffs Support Senate Candidate Mark Lamb, Spurn Kari Lake

Arizona Sheriffs Support Senate Candidate Mark Lamb, Spurn Kari Lake

By Staff Reporter |

A majority of Arizona sheriffs have chosen to side with their fellow Sheriff Mark Lamb in the Senate race over Trump-endorsed Kari Lake, due to the implications of her recently calling Lamb a “coward” for not helping overturn the 2022 election.

Lake shifted some of the blame for her gubernatorial loss onto Lamb during an online forum last month with the Arizona chapter of the Association of Mature American Citizens. In a press release from Lamb’s campaign, the sheriffs of nine counties signed onto a letter condemning Lake’s attack.

“Kari Lake’s recent comment calling Sheriff Mark Lamb a ‘coward’ is both unfounded and disrespectful,” said the statement. “We want to make it clear: neither Sheriff Mark Lamb nor any law enforcement officer who wears a badge and uniform, putting their life on the line every day to protect and serve our communities, is a coward. Arizona voters expect better from a political candidate, especially when they are running for the U.S. Senate.”

Sheriffs Adam Shepard, Gila; David Clouse, Navajo; David Rhodes, Yavapai; Doug Schuster, Mohave; Leon Wilmot, Yuma; Mark Dannels, Cochise; PJ Allred, Graham; Russ Skinner, Maricopa; and William Ponce, La Paz signed onto the letter. Sheriff candidates Jerry Sheridan, Maricopa; Mike Crawford, Maricopa; and Ross Teeple, Pinal also signed onto the letter.

The panel in which Lake criticized Lamb wasn’t designed as a debate, but in some respects it became one. Lake accused Lamb of cowardice for not using law enforcement authority to facilitate change in the 2022 election’s outcome.

“I took every hit fighting for security in our elections. Sheriffs had the ability to fight, and the sheriff in Pinal County cowered, and he’s a total coward when it comes to election integrity,” said Lake.

Lamb responded with accusations that Lake’s assessment about his involvement in scrutinizing the 2022 election wasn’t entirely truthful. Lamb said that Pinal County fired those responsible for underprinting ballots, as well as established cameras and citizen monitors for drop boxes.

“Yes, we didn’t print enough ballots [in 2022] in Pinal County, and guess who didn’t complain about it because she won the primary? Kari didn’t. It didn’t matter to her until the general election,” said Lamb. “I live in a world of evidence, what you can prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt. […] Any one of these people, including Kari, could’ve brought me the evidence that was actionable for me in court to do something about it.”

Outside of the scuffle in the panel, Lake has aimed her attacks on Democratic opponent Ruben Gallego. 

Lake criticized Gallego for not debating, though she has refused to debate Lamb. The GOP debate for Senate candidates is scheduled for June 26, about a week before early voting, and Lamb will be there. 

Should Lake not show up for the debate, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission will pivot to host a 30-minute Q&A with Lamb rather than a 60-minute debate. 

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Governor’s Race Remains Tight As Voters Wait For Ballots To Be Tabulated

Governor’s Race Remains Tight As Voters Wait For Ballots To Be Tabulated

By Terri Jo Neff |

As of press time, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was close to Katie Hobbs, with only 32,200 or so votes separating them, with 350,000 more ballots awaiting tabulation statewide.

It has long been believed that Election Day votes—in person and early ballots dropped off at a voting center—will break in favor of Republican statewide candidates. But there have been complaints from Lake’s campaign that tabulated ballots thought to be from pro-Lake parts of Maricopa County are being held back.

This has kept Lake at a thin margin behind Hobbs going into Saturday night, despite the current Secretary of State’s lack of involvement in widescale public events and Hobbs’ lack of a publicized platform during the campaign.  

One consideration is that many of the 17,000 “drawer 3” ballots cast in-person on Election Day, which were not immediately tabulated due to printer toner issues, have been set aside at Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center  (MCTEC). Those ballots have been projected as likely coming from pro-Lake voters.

Lake and her campaign have remained positive, expressing confidence that the ballot remaining to be tabulated will break for her and the other statewide Republican candidates.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Kelly gave a victory speech on Saturday, although his Republican challenger Blake Masters called on Arizonans to wait until all ballots are counted.

And for his part, Attorney General nominee Abe Hamadeh alleged that the Election Day printer toner issue in Maricopa County was directed against Republicans.

Outgoing Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem has also declined to concede his race for Arizona Secretary of State, although Adrian Fontes had a nearly 120,000 vote lead. He would need roughly 70 percent of the remaining votes to hold even with Fontes.

One person who did concede already is Democrat Martin Quezada, who acknowledged Kimberly Yee as the winner of a second term as State Treasurer by a margin of more than 225,000 votes.

And as previously reported by AZ Free News, Arizona’s second populous county is warning that Pima County’s election results may not be determined for several more days.

Meanwhile, elections officials in all 15 counties were required to begin a state-mandated hand count audit. That audit involves a predetermined number of randomly selected sampling of early ballots cast and election day in-person ballots cast.

But those hand counts can only occur if the political party chairs in each county provided the names of participants by a pre-election deadline. And then the participants must actually show up to conduct the audit.

During the 2020 Primary Election in August, there was no hand count audit performed in Apache, Graham, Greenlee, or Santa Cruz counties due to a lack of participation.  

An effort by some Cochise County officials to conduct a 100 percent hand count audit of all ballots hit a roadblock when the Arizona Court of Appeals and the Arizona Supreme Court declined to hear the matter on an expedited basis.

Instead, the court of appeals set several deadlines for December to hear the arguments from Cochise County’s two Republican supervisors and Republican County Recorder as to why they have authority to hand count more ballots than what is required in state law.

The appeal stems from a Pima County judge’s ruling that hand counting all ballots conflicts with language in state law for a “random” selection of ballots. A Nov. 15 meeting has been called by the board in hopes of modifying their full hand count directive to one calling for the audit of only 99.9 percent of ballots.

Attorneys for the board contend this complies with the randomness concern. One outstanding question is how Recorder David Stevens, whom the board has tasked with the expanded hand count audit, will get his hands on the ballots which are currently in the legal custody of the county’s election director, Lisa Marra.

Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, himself a Republican, authored a Nov. 10 letter to Marra’s attorney outlining several “potential criminal acts” that could result if attempts are made to take the ballots from Marra’s custody without a court order.

McIntyre’s letter was copied to Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who has not taken a public position on how his deputies will respond if the expanded hand count moves forward.

Pinal County Election Leaders Issue Plan to Fix About 63k Erroneous Ballots

Pinal County Election Leaders Issue Plan to Fix About 63k Erroneous Ballots

By Corinne Murdock |

During a special session on Tuesday, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to fix incorrect early ballots mailed to about 63,000 voters last week. The ballots were missing city and town contests from seven municipalities: Casa Grande, Eloy, Mammoth, Maricopa, and Superior, along with the Pinal County portions of Apache Junction and Queen Creek.

Pinal County agreed with the secretary of state’s office to send supplemental ballots, or “Municipal Only” ballots, to all voters in the seven municipalities. However, those voters must also use their original ballot for all federal, state, and legislative contests — the supplemental ballots will only account for the races absent from the original, erroneous ballots. 

The county will also have in-person voting at Election Day polling sites for municipal contests in the seven impacted cities and towns. As for voters with ballots including races outside their jurisdiction, the county assured reporters that the election tabulation system would invalidate and not count them. 

As the Arizona Daily Independent noted, Elections Director David Frisk acknowledged that the county officials bore full responsibility, namely himself. 

“Due to human errors made by myself and staff under my direct supervision, ballots were produced and mailed to voters within seven municipalities without the appropriate local races and measures,” said Frisk. “I missed the crucial step of ensuring that each ballot style produced had appropriate races on it […] It was my mistake.”

READ PINAL COUNTY’S PLAN HERE

The plan comes after AZ Free News reported about one Pinal County resident — attorney general candidate Tiffany Shedd — who petitioned her election officials repeatedly about address errors on her and her family’s voter ID cards. Several weeks before the county mailed the 63,000 erroneous ballots, a deputy county attorney informed Shedd — after alleged hostility from the recorder’s office — that she could no longer contact election officials about her issue.

“Our driver’s licenses don’t match our voter ID cards and it was unacceptable to me that any elections official thought it was okay that we might be forced to cast a provisional ballot,” remarked Shedd at the time. “It is a huge problem to receive a ballot for an election that we are not qualified to vote in, and to be denied the opportunity to vote in your own city’s elections. Is it any wonder people are questioning whether our elections are free and fair?”

Shedd also reported that her son received a ballot including a city council race, despite living outside city limits. This was one issue that affected thousands of other Pinal County voters. 

Shedd wondered how many other residents’ concerns were dismissed by the county. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.