If an election has to be “certified” to be official, then there should be an official procedure to follow should a State, county, or precinct, not certify an election results.
Is there a law that says a county MUST, no matter what, certify and make official the counting results of an election? What if a election supervisor states, “Candidate A received 10,000 more votes than their opponent, and thus is elected” even though there is no evidence of such balloting or even that anyone voted? Must the county officials certify that election? Who decides?
What I’m asking is “is there procedures in the election statues stating what happens should a county not certify their election”? What is the law? Surely, on such an important matter there is a part (c) that states: “should a county not certify the election results.....then....” procedure happens. Such has obviously happened before, so what does the law state? I can’t find that information.
If not, there should be, because otherwise the election law is vague and unenforceable since there is no “should this not happen” paragraph telling the voters what will happen next.
For legislatures not to have addressed this issue, especially after 2016 and 2020, is a dereliction of duty on their part and a deliberate muddying of the waters when it comes to elections. There should be procedures in place instead of lawsuits! What does the law say??????
What if the Cochise County officials tell this Odungo judge to fardel off? Can the case make it to a higher court?
Well, a majority of the supervisors have to agree.
The certification is basically to enter an official count into the record. Challenges to the accuracy of the count, etc., can be filed in court once there's an official count.
The only real basis not to certify is if the supervisors don't feel they have and can't get an accurate count in their county.