in Arizona if you want to pay for a recount you are allowed to. That seems like a bad law - and many Arizonians and even some establisment Republicans are considering this a big problem with how it is set up now; but those are the rules.

In fairness when writing that part of the law or code I doubt they envisioned it being used in this way.

Bryant

two recounts that were supported by the state and done following established procedures; but for this third one that is not paid for by the state it seems like they can do whatever they want. Maybe they largely assumed that after the initial procedures had been done, most people except the most insane would have said "Well, it sucks, but I guess my candidate lost" Maybe they didn't anticipate how insane people would end up being.

Bryant

According to Arizona's SOS federal election laws are being violated, along with state laws.

Keep going to a higher court. Republicans would have moved this to Supreme Court within a week.

her ability to defend against crackpot lawsuits. I don't know whether she can still file.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/984353/arizonas-secretary-state-stripped-duties-after-criticizing-election-audit]

I don't understand how legislatures can just strip elected officials of their powers.

where the susceptible points are in our government, at every level, and are working to exploit all of them to their advantage.

This is an audit of archival records. The election is over. The ballots were counted and the count was certified. Nothing in this process is going to change the outcome.

the recount don't believe that to be the case.

Bryant

The OPs question is: how can a State Party order a recount of the votes?

Answer is: they can't. Because that's not what's happening.

Just do whatever you want.

... A legislative "investigation". The legislature is "in charge" and has hired "experts" to help them.

A staged event for the lesser party base. It will change nothing. IMO.

To ever come to a resolution because the ballots were effectively destroyed.

I really do think that Washington Democrats need to get off Twitter and into the streets and airwaves with a coordinated, sustained rallying of the electorate to counter this creeping fascism. I really think much of our leadership is too cushy and lack a sense of urgency.

They would say they were elected by the people, and only the people who vote have a right to stop them.

And unfortunately, they would be right.

Rec

using a variety of different criteria to assess the intent of the voter.

From these crazies perspectives, that was a partisan exercise (the media being in the pocket of the liberals).

This has some features of that, but with the crazy turned up to a 11.

How are the ballots, those things sacred to democracy, being guarded? How are they protected from
who knows what abuses the wackos "counting" could do?
In the end, they are making complete fools of themselves. Many Republicans are condemning this.
The entire thing has become a joke, a laughingstock, and will be totally discredited.
Still, it should never have been allowed to happen. The Az SoS certified the vote, and there was a recount.
The foolishness should have ended there.

do you give credibility to illegitimate actions by ignoring their illegality. or are the frauditors destroying their own credibility.

They are allowing them to expose their motives and partisanship. Maybe that will pay off at some point.

A legislative investigation duly authorized by the state senate, enforced by a legislative subpoena.

None succeeded.

The argument isn't over, were they allowed, a judge already ruled that. The argument is about once they proceeded with the sham audit they violated election laws.

Elections are largely state affairs

are no longer in the custody of election officials.

Not "what concerned do you have?"

They clearly aren't violating that one.

I'm sure that was an innocent mistake and you can actually point to a federal law that talks about custody of ballots months after an election is certified and that the state legislature lacks the power to do anything with them.

Or perhaps you'll link to an encyclopedia entry on the word "law"?

It talks about ballots being preserved for 22 months.

It's being spun as though there's a small defined group of county officers and ballots must stay with them in order to comply with the law.

There is a state law that comes closer, but it conflicts with another state law and a court already ruled on how to handle that conflict.

But §20701 doesn't say that ballots have to stay locked up by county officials. In the clear context of §20702 it's really about forbidding those officials from destroying/damaging/altering (etc.) those records. Not that they can't be used based on actions of state officials or court orders. That interpretation would, of course, be ridiculous (as well as likely unconstitutional).

The key here is §20706 which defines "officer of election"... which clearly includes a vendor hired to perform an audit (making them also obligated to not "willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter any record or paper" ). Meaning that at no time were the records "no longer in the custody of election officials". If you moonlight as an Uber driver and the Senate's selected supervisor of the audit tells you to drive ten boxes of ballots over to the warehouse... you become an "officer or election" for purposes of this law (and legally liable for any willful destruction of those records). It would be a stupid way to handle the records (and likely violate state law), but it wouldn't violate this federal law.

These Arizona Cyber Ninjas are giving Ninjas a bad name!

then they can pretty much do anything they wish. Just like the republican party refusing to investigate two impeachments, the violent overthrow of our government etc. they fade into oblivion as if they never happened.

Of course it's different in this case, because they'll manufacture "evidence" of voter fraud, and the right-wing propaganda media will broadcast it far and wide.

I was talked in to running for Secretary of our Local Union, no one wanted the hassle. So I win. An election comes up where the president is retiring and 2 people are running for president. We had 1,300 members in our Local. The election was decided by 3 votes but when the election committee gave its report it stated that it threw out 7 ballots for a mistake on the ballot. The election committee screwed up, they should have only disqualified the part of the ballot that was bad and counted the votes for president. So the 2nd place candidate wants to know if those 7 ballots thrown out would have made a difference. It turns out the election committee sealed everything in the ballot box so they didn't know. The president calls me up and tells me to go ahead and open the ballot box to see if there would have been a difference. Big mistake, I did open up a sealed ballot box and sure enough the loser of the election should have won. So the loser files an appeal. Meanwhile the "winner" of the election gets word that I was into a sealed ballot box. Next day I get a phone call from the Assistant Secretary of Labor asking me if I was into a sealed ballot box. Shit man I am in serious trouble, it didn't matter that the president told me to do it. I'm looking at a serious fine, at a minimum. The International Union got involved with the Labor Department and decided to hold a whole new election, which shouldn't have been one of the options but it got me off the hook.

I tell this lengthy tale because it showed me that the federal government investigated what I had done, more than is being done in the Arizona farce.

Oh and the real loser of the election ended up winning big because after all I was in a sealed ballot box doing whatever.

I am imagining those conversations between you and the Sec of Labor dept, Union bosses.. must have been a shit storm and extremely intimidating conversations. and yeppers you're right, if you were involved in a similar task for Trump or get involved in the AZ Ninja show, you wouldn't have any issues with law enforcement or the Fed's.

thanks for sharing

He will try everything in his power to make that happen, as delusional as he is.

Its all about money now

I can't even imagine what a cluster the next election might be.

I think that's the idea.

This is about the delegitimization of democracy, period.

As authoritarians have long known?

Exactly!

The founders relied on the will of the people to act in their self interest thus checking the tendencies of partisan over-reach.

Democrats have slowly lost their share of power by allowing incremental erosion of the intent of the law without much of a whimper. They have long since given the military to the republicans. Also the law enforcement community. With the current co-option of the USSC, the legal system, too, is lost. It appears the DOJ can't get out of the planning stage so it remains only a vague hope at this time. I mean, who's going to arrest these traitors any way? With everybody so concerned with doing things correctly, an obvious reaction to an intent to not do things their way, the ONLY element of control Democrats have left is their MAJORITY in the population.

These endless recounts, no matter how farcical or insincere, serve to diminish that last and only evidence of our democracy. The will of the people. When we see these monsters quote the constitution to justify their outrages it sickens the body politic.

If Democrats don't make some real headway, and soon, fascism's on the table. Better get used to eating it. Sometimes it's a little too spicy. Others, it's too bland.

...legislative "investigation". The legislature has the power to investigate "issues". The repugs control the legislature so they can order up an investigation. They hired "experts" to help them. (They also have the power of the purse.)

That is the explanation, and why it is legal.

... What does Eric Holder say is going on?

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday expressed concerns that a controversial audit and recount of the November election in Arizona's Maricopa County may be out of compliance with federal laws.

Pamela Karlan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, wrote in a letter that federal officials see two issues with the election review ordered by the Republican-led state Senate.

One issue is that ballots, voting systems and other election materials are no longer in the custody of election officials — a possible violation of federal law, which requires state and local election workers to store and safeguard federal voting records.

The other issue: Plans for door-to-door canvassing may also violate federal laws aimed at preventing voter intimidation, according to Karlan.
The Senate's contract with Cyber Ninjas states the firms plan to "identify voter registrations that did not make sense, and then knock on doors to confirm if valid voters actually lived at the state address." Auditors also plan to ask voters about their voting history to determine "whether the individual voted in the [November] election."

"Past experience with similar investigative efforts around the country has raised concerns that they can be directed at minority voters, which potentially can implicate the anti-intimidation prohibitions of the Voting Rights Act," Karlan wrote. "Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future."

just because a Qanon company that has no experience in doing audits is rifling through sealed ballots, election equipment and election materials no need to worry.

I opened up a sealed ballot box as Secretary of my Local Union to determine if ballots should have been voided and I had the Assistant Secretary of Labor at my door.

And maybe not.
Even if it's ruled illegal who suffers consequences?
No one.

Republicans don't suffer legal consequences for crimes.

Canvassing idea. I don't think that the watchdog's lawsuit to stop then audit (which was settled by a stipulation in May) raised the federal custody issue.
There was a lawsuit brought in February by Maricopa County officials to quash the legislative subpoena for ballots and voting machines. A state judge ruled that under state law the subpoena was valid.

it will get A LOT worse.

President of the Senate indemnified Maricopa County for any costs. They will have to buy new machines.

This has been demonstrated over and over and over in recent years.
How many of Trumps criminal cronies ar in jail? None.
Only a few low level jerks and one fall guY, Cohen, who's actually Democrat.
We keep hearing how they will all be in jail soon. We've heard that for years.
Never happens.

It's an unwritten rule in American politics that Republicans do not suffer legal consequences for criminal behavior.
And they know it.
The only consequence is occasionally at the ballot box but not very often

... they only look more stupid every day. Let them do what the fuck ever they want to Maricopa's ballots. How is anyone ever going to derive a conclusion from this travesty? Let them have any of the already certified filing of ballots they want. BFD.

Their screwing up of the ballots and machines will prove not a fucking thing. Except how remarkably stupid the whole gang of them are.

But Repugs are perceived as representing Wall Street and Big Business (whether they actually do or not), so it's all good.

... long after the election was over. It obviously had no bearing on the results, as was known when it started.

The recount by them was chock-full of irony for both the Gore and Bush teams, both of whom repeatedly pushed for things which wouldn't have helped them at all -- such as the limited recount in mostly Democratic counties by Gore, which would've still resulted in a Bush victory. A full recount of the entire state, on the other hand, would've resulted in Gore barely winning depending on how contested ballots were included/excluded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/11/12/florida-recounts-would-have-favored-bush/964f109e-c871-4050-af25-f7978cc25dfa/

This Arizona recount is a partisan joke in comparison, but it won't change anything. The insane will continue believing whatever they want to believe, no matter what this supposed recount reveals either way.

Have you ever met a person, and after a minute realized that there was something not quite right? Or maybe something really wrong? You know the person is not on the same wavelength at you, and they start saying crazy things or unpleasant things. You are used to a conventional conversation, but their responses and reactions are not what you're used to. So you finish the conversation, and move on.

In the past, I've talked to people high on God. I've watched street corner orators screaming their beliefs at the passing crowd. I get a kick out of little children defiantly staying awake and trying to talk and make sense. The last one is cute, but they are really out of it when they are in that state.

To your point-none of this is legal. It is crazy. And we aren't yet a nation of people who can manage crazy. As individuals, most of us have never talked a person out of jumping. Our institutions, our judicial system and our social mores are set up to react to convention.

Traitor, his inner circle, and his adherents are all mentally ill. We have to regretfully recognize that they are mentally ill, and firmly take control to stop their destructive behavior. Right now, we are nonplussed and really don't know how to act. But we can't keep moving on. We have to realize that a lot of current behavior is a direct result of mental illness and stop acting like the actors are normal.