Arizona Senate planning to hold board in contempt in election fight

PHOENIX — Republicans who control the Arizona Senate were poised to hold the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt Monday for failing to turn over voting machines and ballots from the November election that lawmakers want to examine as they continue to question President Joe Biden’s win in the state.

If the contempt resolution passes, as appears likely, the five-member board could be subject to immediate arrest.

GOP Senate President Karen Fann met with two members of board Monday morning, said Steve Gallardo, the only Democrat on the five-member board. There was no immediate word if the talks led to any deal to stave off the vote.

Republican Sen. Warren Peterson, who heads the Judiciary Committee and issued the subpoenas that the board is refusing to honor, said at midmorning that the Senate still plans to vote to find the board in contempt when it meets Monday afternoon. All 16 Republicans in the Senate have signed onto the measure.

On Monday, the board filed for a restraining order and injunction barring the Senate from voting to hold it in contempt while a court considers a request it filed on Friday to quash the subpoena.

The court filing says the effort by the Senate is a sham.

Gallardo said he’s concerned that backers of former President Donald Trump will take matters into their own hands if the Senate resolution passes.

“You know, what really concerns is not (Senate sergeant at arms) Joe Kubacki showing up to my door, or even (state police), it’s the rhetoric of these people online — these are the people with zip ties.

“And I would hope that Karen Fann knows who’s she talking to,” Gallardo said. “Every time she throws something out there, this whole group that was part of this insurrection, that’s the audience that she’s talking to.

“Someone’s going to get hurt if they don’t stop this,” he said.

The Senate has been trying since mid-December to get access to ballots and other materials so they can do their own audit of the election results. They are prompted in part by the many Republicans who subscribe to unfounded claims that President Joe Biden won Arizona because of problems with vote counting. GOP senators say they’re just trying to boost voter confidence in elections.

The board has already turned over a massive amount of data requested by the Senate as it seeks to perform an outside audit of the election that saw Trump lose in the state. Republicans continue to raise unfounded claims of potential fraud or miscounts, which were rejected by a series of Arizona courts, including the state Supreme Court.

The supervisors said in Friday’s court filing that while they respect the power of the Legislature to issue subpoenas and have provided much of the information lawmakers seek, it would be illegal to turn over the ballots, and allowing access to voting machines by unqualified personnel would render them useless in future elections.

Fann issued a statement Monday morning slamming supervisors for their lawsuit.

“This new lawsuit is filled with a mischaracterization of facts to gain advantage with the courts and the media,” Fann said. “Instead of making efforts to reach a resolution, the county is trying to score points.”

Fann announced on Jan. 29 that she had hired a firm to conduct an audit of the county’s elections, but has since backtracked and said she has not hired an auditor. But correspondence between Fann’s lawyer and the county shows that Fann is proposing to use a firm with strong connections to the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn election results in multiple battleground states to do the review, with oversight from another firm.

The Allied Security Operations Group worked with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to raise baseless allegations of election fraud and counting errors in Arizona and other states. The documents outline the work the company would do for the Senate if they are allowed access to ballots and election equipment, including recounting at least 550,000 ballots and collecting “forensic images” of software used in ballot counting machines.

The board supervisors have repeatedly pointed to multiple tests of the voting machines done before and after the election and hand counts of a sample of ballots that showed the count was accurate. They fought subpoenas issued in December by the Senate Judiciary Committee with the backing of Fann in court. Still, the county is conducting two new voting machine audits.