The Arizona Court of Appeal has ruled that counties don’t have the legal authority to order hand counts of all their ballots in an election.
The appeal stems from 2022 when the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans challenged the Cochise County Board of Supervisors to stop a plan to perform a hand-count audit of all ballots in the general election.
They were stopped by the Cochise County Superior Court and the Court of Appeals affirmed their decision this week. The appellate court ruled that counties cannot perform a hand count audit of more ballots than is prescribed by law. State law requires the hand-counted audit of a small fraction of ballots after each election to confirm that the results of tabulator counts are correct.
Cochise County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Peggy Judd told the Arizona Mirror that she won't continue her fight for hand counts, even though she believes they have the “moral high ground” over electronic tabulation machines.