North Pima News

Arizona Rep. Justin Heap used platform X to express his support for former Arizona Attorney General Candidate Abe Hamadeh, who has sought a new trial in light of his election loss last year. In his post, Heap highlights numerous inconsistencies in the 2022 Arizona election, which have fueled his belief that Hamadeh's suspicions are well-founded.

"For doing so he has been mocked and slandered as an election-denier and his lawyers are accused, threatened, and investigated by the State Bar for representing him," Heap said. "Is it unreasonable for Abe to want all the votes counted? If the new count still shows Mayes ahead, Abe will concede defeat and get on with his life."

Numerous allegations of a flawed election have arisen since the November 2022 results, with both Hamadeh and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake prominently raising concerns. Hamadeh, the former Republican candidate for the attorney general position, narrowly lost to Kris Mayes by a margin of just 280 votes, according to Arizona Daily Independent.

On election day in Maricopa County, nearly 20% of the voting locations, approximately one in four, encountered glitches. These unforeseen malfunctions affected multiple ballot tabulator machines and had a considerable impact on a total of 17,000 ballots in the county. As a result, concerns about the fairness and accuracy of the election process surfaced, leading to widespread accusations of fraud, according to the New York Times.

Hamadeh's pursuit of a new trial follows a December attempt that did not persuade a judge, primarily due to a lack of supporting evidence, to believe that widespread election misconduct had caused his election loss. However, Hamadeh claims that there are more than 500 uncounted votes in Pinal County alone, without considering discrepancies in other counties, including Maricopa. Additionally, his legal team has also said that there could be up to 1,000 rejected provisional ballots, according to AZ Mirror.

Last week, Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen finally signed the orders for Hamadeh's case, enabling him to proceed with an appeal. Hamadeh had been awaiting this signature for several months, as it was a prerequisite for initiating the appeal process. Despite urging from the Arizona Supreme Court, the court system's delays have prolonged the duration of his election contest to over nine months and counting, according to Arizona Daily Independent.

"Closest statewide race in Arizona history with the biggest recount discrepancy in history; and still 9,000 Election Day uncounted provisional ballots — 70% voting Republicans," said Hamadeh in a post on the X platform. "But never question elections."

"Democrats stole the Arizona Attorney General race in 2022," said Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, in a post on the X platform. "For example, Maricopa County printed the wrong-sized ballot. 1/4 of Maricopa’s voting machines malfunctioned for hours on Election Day. Voters got stuck in massive lines, as the voting machines rejected the ballots. Election officials sent these voters to other polling locations. But they were already checked in at the prior locations. So they couldn't vote. Yet Maricopa and Democrats opposed a short court extension, to allow these voters to cast their ballots. Democrat Kris Mayes "won" by 280 votes. Will Kris Mayes now also indict Trump?"