A state judge in Arizona has ordered sanctions against former GOP candidate Mark Finchem after the Republican filed a lawsuit to challenge his midterm election loss last year that was ruled to be “groundless and not brought in good faith.”
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian made the ruling on March 1, handing a win to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who filed a motion in December seeking sanctions against Finchem, whom he defeated in the midterm elections. Julian ruled in favor of Fontes, arguing Finchem’s allegations that thousands of Republicans were disenfranchised were untrue.
MARK FINCHEM’S ELECTION LAWSUIT GETS TOSSED OUT WITH PREJUDICE BY ARIZONA JUDGE
Finchem filed the lawsuit shortly after his electoral loss, alleging widespread technical difficulties in Maricopa County on Election Day kept at least 200,000 GOP voters from casting their ballots. Election officials acknowledged there were widespread printer problems at several polling locations in the county that delayed tabulation on election night, but they maintain that all voters who sought to cast their ballots were able to do so.
Going further, Julian ruled that even if Finchem’s allegations were correct, it still would not have been enough for him to win the election. In an expert analysis commissioned by Finchem, officials flagged 80,000 “potentially missing votes” — far below the margin of 120,208 votes he lost by.
“None of Contestant Finchem’s allegations, even if true, would have changed the vote count enough to overcome the 120,000 votes he needed to affect the result of this election,” Julian wrote. “That margin was so significant that even if it were assumed that 80,000 votes were missing and that those votes would all have been cast in his favor, the result of the election would not have changed.”
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“This demonstrates that Finchem challenged his election loss despite knowing that his claims regarding misconduct and procedural irregularities were insufficient under the law to sustain the contest,” she added.
As part of the ruling, Finchem is required to pay the legal fees accrued by Fontes’s office to defend against the allegations. It’s not yet clear how much Finchem will have to pay, as Fontes has 20 days to submit an application for repayment.