Candidates and other interested parties have started filing lawsuits contesting the election results in Arizona, particularly in Maricopa County, where 59 percent of the vote centers were plagued with ballot tabulation problems, causing long lines in heavily Republican areas forcing some voters to leave without voting. One of those lawsuits was filed on Monday by State Senator Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu), challenging the use of AI to verify signatures, which Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has stated is illegal.
Attorneys for the election integrity organization True the Vote drafted the complaint. It asserted, “Maricopa County ran 1.3 million images, on monitors, past the eyes of a few dozen of its Signature Verifiers at such a rapid clip that it was physically impossible for them to verify the Delegated Software’s adjudications about those images reliably.” True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht told The Arizona Sun Times, “Many voters in Mohave County reported concern that their votes were being diluted by events in Maricopa County. We listened, retained counsel, and got to work. This litigation seeks to uncover the source of their concerns. We look forward to seeing it tried in court.”
Filed in Mohave County Superior Court and naming Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Maricopa County Supervisors, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer as defendants, the lawsuit also represents Mohave County voters. It seeks to nullify the gubernatorial election results. It included exhibits containing emails and contracts between Maricopa County Elections employees and third-party vendor Runbeck Election Services arranging to use AI for signature verification. Earlier this year, an attorney for Maricopa County admitted AI is used for signature verification, prompting concern by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
The complaint stated that the county “failed to set standards or provide guidance of any sort for (1) adjustments that might be made to the Delegated Software’s settings during the ballot count, (2) recruiting and hiring people tasked with operating the software (‘the Signature Verifiers’), (3) adequate training for the Signature Verifiers, (4) reliable back-up systems, or (5) mechanisms for appeal or review of rejected ballot signatures.” The complaint said this led to a large number of mail-in and drop box ballots that were “counted when they should not have passed a proper verification system, thereby diluting the voting strength of voters in other counties, including Mohave County.”
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times