“Plaintiffs Arizona Republican Party and Kelli Ward, as Chairman of Arizona Republican Party, and as a resident of Mohave County (hereinafter Plaintiffs) filed a request for an Order to Show Cause and Verified Complaint alleging Arizona’s noexcuse mail-in ballot system violates the Arizona Constitution. Plaintiffs also filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction asking the Court to stop the use of no-excuse mail-in ballots in the November 2022 General Election. The Court heard arguments from Plaintiffs and multiple parties opposed on Friday, June 3, 2022.”

“Plaintiffs also allege the no-excuse mail-in voting statutes are in violation of the Arizona Constitution ‘as applied.’ In the Verified Complaint, and in a series of exhibits the Court admitted at the hearing over objection of opposing parties, Plaintiffs show examples of bad actors violating no-excuse mail-in voting laws. These examples are concerning but they do not address the issue before the Court: the constitutionality of the statutes in question. Furthermore, they do not show a pattern of conduct so egregious as to undermine the entire system of no-excuse mail-in voting as provided by the Arizona legislature. Enforcement mechanisms exist within the statutes to punish those that do not abide by the statutes. Defendants for the past thirty years have applied the laws of Arizona as written. The laws are far from perfect and nobody anticipated thirty years ago that approximately 90 percent of Arizona voters would vote by mail-in ballot during a pandemic, but these laws are NOT in violation of the Arizona Constitution.”

“They are not inapposite of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution who emphasized the right to suffrage for Arizona citizens and that the voters’ ballots be secret. The laws passed by the Arizona legislature in 1991 further those goals. It is the only question before the Court: Is the Arizona legislature prohibited by the Arizona Constitution from enacting voting laws that include no-excuse mail-in voting? The answer is no. IT IS ORDERED denying the relief requested in the Plaintiffs’ Application for an Order to Show Cause and denying Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction” says the order from the Mohave County Arizona Superior Court.