Abraham Hamadeh, a Republican candidate for Arizona Attorney General, has announced that he is asking a court to delay the inauguration of the state’s Office of Attorney General until all issues surrounding potential discrepancies in the recount and litigation are resolved.
In addition, Hamadeh has requested that current Attorney General Mark Brnovich remain in office until all issues have been resolved, American Greatness reports.
“We MUST get to the bottom of this election,” Hamadeh tweeted on Thursday. “Transparent elections are fundamental to a democracy. A discrepancy this big in the recount calls for an inspection of ALL the ballots.”
Hamadeh, an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, made this announcement after Democrat Kris Mayes was declared the winner of the attorney general race on Thursday, beating Hamadeh by 280 votes in the mandatory recount.
The initial tally in November showed Mayes leading by 511 votes out of a total of 2.5 million votes cast.
The discrepancy was reportedly found in Pinal County’s recount of ballots cast in the general election.
Under Arizona law, a mandatory recount is triggered if a candidate wins by a margin of less than or equal to 0.5% of the total votes cast.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason announced the results of the recount on Thursday.
Political consultant Constantin Querard shared news of the discrepancy in Pinal County on Twitter, saying, “From a reliable source in a rural county – a sizable number of votes were found during the recount. The net benefit to GOP candidates could be in the hundreds. Yikes! Maybe this is why the recount results are being slow-walked by Hobbs? I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but no process is perfect, so keep an eye on it!”
Both Hamadeh and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake challenged their election results in court, but their cases were dismissed after they were unable to convince the judge that they lost due to mismanagement in Maricopa County.
However, legal experts now believe that the new information about the Pinal County “system failure” changes “the legal landscape for Hamadeh,” according to the Arizona Independent News Network.
Hamadeh is now calling for a “complete inspection” of all ballots due to the discrepancy in Pinal County.
He has accused Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Secretary of State, and her office of “abusing the courts” and “making a mockery of the justice system.” Hamadeh tweeted, “They knew the results of the recount would show a large discrepancy due to tabulation errors and fought against our election contest knowing this. They deceived the courts.”
