Mohave County waited until Nov. 28, the deadline for Arizona counties to certify, to vote on the certification of its election because of the host of issues that plagued Election Day in Maricopa County, casting a cloud over Hobbs' razor-thin victory in the gubernatorial race over GOP nominee Kari Lake, the consistent leader in pre-election opinion polling.
Two of the supervisors on the Mojave County board said they were voting to certify the election "under duress," after being warned that they would "be arrested and charged with a felony" if they didn't, according to the board chairman, Ron Gould.
While Mohave County's own election was problem-free, the Board of Supervisors was concerned about the election issues in Maricopa County, said Gould.
"We believe that Mohave County voters were disenfranchised by the problems that they had in Maricopa County," Gould said in an interview Wednesday on Real America's Voice TV's "The War Room."
"Their mistakes are bigger than our entire county vote, and I think it's disenfranchised the rural voters across the state, not to mention that it disenfranchises Maricopa County voters and Republican voters, in particular, who are more likely to cast their ballot at the poll" on Election Day, he said. "So any problems at the poll affect Republicans more than they would affect Democrats."
Had the board declined to certify its election, however, the county's votes would not have been included in the state total, Gould explained, which would have handed two Republican statewide seats to the Democrats. Moreover, lawsuits against the election results cannot move forward until the state has certified the election.
In a Nov. 23 letter to the Mojave County Board, State Elections Director Kori Lorick, who serves under Hobbs in the secretary of state's office, said that the canvass — or certification — of the election "is not discretionary."
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