Despite a judge throwing out her prosecution of Arizona’s 2020 alternate electors for Donald Trump and their associates, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court on Friday. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers dismissed the case earlier this year after ruling that Mayes failed to provide a document central to the defense to grand jurors. Myers said the grand jurors should have been allowed to review the 1887 Electoral Count Act (ECA), which addressed competing slates of electors in presidential elections.
In her appeal, Mayes said that the alternate electors “falsely purported to be the ‘duly elected and qualified Electors,’ submitt[ed] those documents to various government officials; and then spen[t] the next four weeks trying to legitimize those false documents…”
The defendants said their alternate slate was authorized by the Constitution, pointing to previous occasions in history such as Hawaii’s 1960 presidential election where there were two alternate slates of electors. One of those slates was certified by the governor, but one was only submitted by the Democratic Party — similar to the Arizona slate submitted by the Republican Party, there was no official government approval. The electors in the Hawaii slate were not prosecuted. Both Hawaiian slates were submitted in accordance with the ECA. (The ECA was modified by Congress in 2022, but its changes are irrelevant to Mayes’ prosecution over the 2020 election.)
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