Free Republic

Democrat Kris Mayes is the winner of Arizona's attorney general race, a state judge announced Thursday. Mayes defeated Republican Abraham Hamadeh by 280 votes after a mandatory recount was triggered due to how close they were separated after the initial tally in November, when Mayes led by roughly 500 votes out of 2.5 million cast. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason unveiled the results of the recount in a hearing on Thursday. Mayes' lead from November was nearly halved in the recount. The results showed she had 1,254,809 votes to Hamadeh’s 1,254,529 votes. Mayes' victory is another win for...

A judge has ruled that Arizona’s legislature is within its constitutional rights to allow “no-excuse” mail-in ballots, denying the state GOP’s legal challenge ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen ruled against the Arizona GOP and its chair, Dr. Kelli Ward, in support of a 1991 law that permits no-excuse mail-in ballots.“Defendants for the past thirty years have applied the laws of Arizona as written,” Jantzen wrote in his ruling (pdf). “The laws are far from perfect and nobody anticipated thirty years ago that approximately 90 percent of Arizona voters would vote by mail-in ballot...