Cochise County officials drop lawsuit seeking ballot hand count

Two GOP supervisors in Cochise County have withdrawn their lawsuit seeking a recount of the 2022 election, since the ballots appear heading that way anyhow thanks to an extremely close race for state attorney general.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley signed an order withdrawing the complaint early Thursday.

Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd have for weeks fought to get a full hand recount of approximately 40,000 ballots in their county, even before Election Day, saying the effort was needed to calm fears from their constituents that elections are not legitimate.

County Recorder David Stevens was on board, too, planning a location and assembling volunteers to do the work.

But McGinley said the county has to recount ballots as required by law, and state law doesn’t allow arbitrary 100% hand recounts. The recount advocates lost an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, and then filed a new suit even though they hadn’t yet taken a public vote on how to pay their lawyer.

But with only hundreds of votes separating the candidates for attorney general, Arizona law will almost certainly require a recount of that race in every county, including Cochise.

“Plaintiffs hereby withdraw their petition as they do not want to interfere in the process of preparing for a 100% ballot recount,” the motion to withdraw said.

Thanks to a new state law, if the at

torney general race winds up with the candidates’ vote totals within 0.5% of each other, the state is required to recount the votes.

The supervisors’ request to drop the case said Cochise County will use different machines and software for such a recount, so “it achieves some of the goals envisioned by plaintiffs in that it will validate or not the closest statewide race on the ballot.”

Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra could not be reached to confirm the county would use different equipment and software for such a recount.

Earlier this week, the supervisors tried to approve a contract for the county to pay $10,000 to the Phoenix-area law firm that specializes in divorce and custody cases to keep working on the issue, with Judd promising to pay the county back. That didn’t fly.

The county administrator said there was no mechanism to simply take Judd’s word that she’d repay the county, and he wasn’t even sure that was possible. Judd and Crosby then delayed voting on the $10,000 payment until later this month.

The supervisors are scheduled to canvass election results this afternoon.