Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (left) Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates (right) By Matthew Casey/KJZZ
We The People AZ Alliance filed a new Special Action Complaint yesterday seeking a writ of mandamus ordering the Maricopa County Elections Department to produce public records relating to the inspection of all 2022 General Election Ballot Affidavit Envelopes, including mail-in, early voting, and late early ballot envelopes.
The lawsuit is signed off by We The People AZ co-founder and Maricopa County Republican Committee First-Vice Chair Shelby Busch.
This comes after We The People AZ sent a public records request to view these documents on April 5. According to the filing, “On April 10, 2023, the Public Records Custodian responded to Plaintiff WE THE PEOPLE’s request by stating, ‘pursuant to A.R.S. 16-168(F) and in the best interest of the state exception to the Public Records Act, the Recorder’s Office is denying your request.’”
The Gateway Pundit recently reported that Maricopa County also refused to provide Kari Lake’s legal team with these public records and gave the same response. This was despite the Arizona Supreme Court’s recent order sending the erroneously dismissed signature verification fraud count in Kari Lake’s lawsuit to overturn the rigged gubernatorial election back to the trial court for further review.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers also requested to view these public records in her capacity as Chairwoman of the Arizona Senate Elections Committee, which the County denied.
One can only infer that Maricopa County refuses to comply with these legal requests because they are hiding signature verification fraud.
More from the new lawsuit:
“It should be undisputed that the documents and information sought by Plaintiff are public records. Defendants have failed to produce or make such records available for inspection promptly, thereby disregarding their statutory obligations under Arizona’s Public Records Act.”
“Plaintiff seeks to inspect the affidavit under a statutory exemption, which broadly include ‘the voter, by an authorized government official in the scope of the official’s duties, for any purpose by an entity designated by the secretary of state as a voter registration agency pursuant to the national voter registration act of 1993 . . ., for signature verification on petitions and candidate filings, for election purposes and for news gathering purposes by a person engaged in newspaper, radio, television or reportorial work, or connected with or employed by a newspaper, radio or television station or pursuant to a court order.’”
“Defendants also denied Plaintiff access based on an undisclosed ‘best interest of the state’ exception. Here, the best interests of the state cannot be defined as preventing a Plaintiff from discovering the use of fraudulent signatures in the vote by mail process.
“Unlike the absolute prohibition on release of ballots and ballot images by A.R.S. § 16-625, A.R.S. § 16- 168(F) offers a wide range of exemptions, including highly partisan groups currently allowed access to the voter registration database by the Secretary of State, including Arizona Center for Disability Law, Arizona Student Association, Chicanos Por La Causa, Equality Arizona Foundation, Inspire2Vote – Project High Hopes, Mi Familia Vota, One Arizona, Phoenix Indian Center, Rock the Vote, and The Civics Center.”
“The affidavit envelopes are also not entitled to any privacy protections simply because they contain a signature. The individual signing the affidavit knowingly and intentionally signs the outside of the envelope before depositing that envelope into the stream of commerce. During its travels to Maricopa County, the affidavit envelope is handled by an unknown number of the public, including postal workers, private citizens, and employees of Runbeck, a private corporation retained to process and perform signature verification on affidavit envelopes.”
“Defendants’ failure to promptly produce the requested documents and information constitutes an effective denial of access to public records and prevents Plaintiffs from monitoring election activity in Maricopa County, the most populace county in Arizona.“
Read the full complaint below:
WTPAZ Final Complaint by Jordan Conradson on Scribd
The post JUST IN: We The People AZ Alliance Files Lawsuit Against Maricopa County to Force Compliance With Public Records Request for Fraudulent 2022 Ballot Signatures – FILING INCLUDED appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.