The Cochise County Board of Supervisors must meet at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday and canvass the results of the Nov. 8 election, a judge ruled, reprimanding the board for its failure to fulfill the obligation to do so earlier this week.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley directed the board to submit the canvass to the Arizona secretary of state by 5 p.m.
His order came after a hearing that lasted less than a half hour and proceeded without an attorney representing the board.
McGinley rejected Supervisor Tom Crosby’s request to continue the hearing until Tuesday so the board’s attorney — hired two hours before the hearing — could “get up to speed.”
The supervisors found a lawyer and voted 2-1 to hire him two hours before a scheduled court hearing over their decision not to certify results of the Nov. 8 election.
Their vote, at the end of an approximately seven-minute emergency meeting, authorized the county administrator to contract with McCauley Law Offices PLC of Cave Creek and its owner, Daniel McCauley.
Democrat Supervisor Ann English voted against the action, saying it was “too little, too late” to hire a lawyer so close to the hearing who was not familiar with the case.
She said she previously hoped to have legal representation, but hiring a lawyer so late essentially only would allow a lawyer to go to court and ask for a continuance, which she said was not in the county’s best interest.
But GOP supervisors Crosby and Peggy Judd approved the hiring. Neither had much to say about English’s comments.
“I can’t talk. It hurts,” Judd said. “But yeah. I’m OK with doing it. I feel it’s better than doing nothing. Sorry. We did work pretty hard to try to figure that out when Mr. Blehm wasn’t available.”
The supervisors on Tuesday voted to hire attorney Bryan Blehm to defend them and the county government against two lawsuits, even though they had not discussed the matter with him. On Wednesday, they were caught flat-footed when Blehm declined the offer, as did another attorney he had recommended.
The three supervisors were present in a Bisbee courtroom as McGinley considered requests from Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, as well as a retiree group, to order the board to certify election results. That certification, by law, was due Monday. But on a 2-1 vote, the board voted to delay a decision until week’s end.
Board chairwoman English, who dissented from the motion to delay, said she will be in court, as she was subpoenaed to appear. Judd and Crosby voted in favor of a delay until they can convene a special meeting Friday.
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“It would be my wish that we at least would have an attorney to represent the county,” English said, somewhat wistfully, on Wednesday. She said she told county administrators to ask Crosby and Judd for further attorney recommendations, since those two are the ones that have chosen to disregard state law and triggered the lawsuits.
The county also was hit with a claim seeking $25,000 in damages for the board’s inaction on certification. Paul Sivertsen, a Cochise County resident, said the board’s failure to certify dismissed his vote and disenfranchised his rights as a voter.
Hobbs has said if Cochise does not submit its certification in time for Monday’s statewide canvass, the county’s 47,000 votes will not be counted. A court order could avert that scenario.
Sivertsen is seeking the compensation because, he said in a news release, he believes monetary fines are the only way to prevent “future anti-democratic and unlawful maneuvers.”
He also suggested the claim could be the opening salvo in an attempt to file a class-action lawsuit.
The lawsuits brought by Hobbs and the Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans were heard in Cochise County Superior Court in Bisbee by McGinley, who on Nov. 7 ruled that the board had broken the law by pursuing a 100% hand count of every ballot cast in the Nov. 8 election.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.
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