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Republican county supervisors charged with election interference and conspiracy, Arizona AG announces
By bellecarter // 2023-12-07
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Two Cochise County supervisors have been indicted on election interference and conspiracy. Arizona's Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes announced the charges in a media release. On Wednesday, Mayes, who was narrowly elected as the state's attorney general last year after multiple recounts, revealed that a State Grand Jury had returned felony indictments against Willcox's Peggy Suzanne Judd, 61 and Sierra Vista's Terry Thomas "Tom" Crosby, 64. Judd and Crosby are both Republicans. "The repeated attempts to undermine our democracy are unacceptable," Mayes said in a statement. "I took an oath to uphold the rule of law, and my office will continue to enforce Arizona's elections laws and support our election officials as they carry out the duties and responsibilities of their offices." The indictment, which was marked as a rare instance of criminally prosecuting people connected to the vote canvassing being dragged out last year in six Arizona counties, indicated that the two supervisors "knowingly interfered with the Arizona Secretary of State's ability to complete the statewide canvass for the 2022 General Election by preventing the canvass of votes from Cochise County from occurring during the period required by Arizona law." In December 2022, Cochise County certified election results only after a judge ruled Crosby and Judd were breaking the law by refusing to sign off on the vote count by the deadline. The two said they weren't satisfied that the machines used to tabulate ballots were properly certified for use in elections. This prompted lawsuits including one from then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. They both were subpoenaed to court earlier this month. "I don’t feel like I broke a law. But the courts had different feelings," Judd said that time. Cochise County spokesperson Jane Montgomery declined to comment but confirmed both supervisors will be responsible for their own legal representation. The charges are Class 5 felonies, carrying individual prison terms of between six months and two years. Both are scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 21 before a Maricopa County Superior Court judge.

Crosby's lawyer: The indictment is nothing but political

Meanwhile, Crosby's attorney Dennis Wilenchik told Axios that the the interference charge has no basis because the board certified its results before the statutory deadline for the secretary of state to canvass the statewide results. "The indictment is the product of nothing but political partisanship," he said. He added that the claim of interfering with an election officer appears to be solely related to the allegation that Crosby and Judd, by initially refusing to certify the results, delayed the ability of Hobbs to perform the state canvass. "The interference never could actually have occurred because Hobbs still received the county canvass before Hobbs' own deadline to conduct the statewide canvass,'' Wilenchik said. "So that claim seems kind of nonsensical.'' (Related: Arizona Republicans ban the state from using electronic voting machines in future federal elections.) He also blasted the conspiracy charge. "The conspiracy is based on an alleged 'agreement' to interfere that is non-existent, as there was none,'' the lawyer said. He said he now wants to see the transcripts of the entire grand jury testimony, saying that could provide a basis to have the indictment dismissed. Ann English, the lone Democrat on the three-member board and the only supervisor to vote for certification was not subpoenaed or indicted. She said she had no immediate comments on the indictment of her colleagues. "It is in the hands of the court system,'' she said. "I am willing to accept their decision.'' Last year, she even told reporters that the sanctions against her "errant" colleagues appeared to be appropriate. "The law was pretty specific about what we were supposed to do,'' English said, which is why she said she tried all along as the chair of the board at the time, to get them to vote to certify the results. She added that was backed up by Brian McIntyre, the county attorney, who told the board members they were legally obligated to complete the canvass and do it by Nov. 28, 2002. According to her, it took the court order to get Judd to finally join with English on Dec. 1 to certify the results. "I'm certainly not vindictive,'' she said at that time. "But I just don't know what the statement needs to be so that this doesn't become universal in all the small counties, or counties of any size. The lesson we can learn should be, 'Now, if you do this, what will happen to you.''' Read more about the threats to America's election security at VoteFraud.news.

Sources for this article include:

WesternJournal.com AZAG.gov Axios.com MyHeraldReview.com
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