Arizona Governor-elect Katie Hobbs (D-Ariz) allegedly threatened the Mohave County Board of Supervisors with prosecution if they didn’t certify the election results favoring her before the state deadline.
According to emails documents, Arizona State Elections Director Kori Lorick wrote multiple emails and letters warning them that if they refused to certify the results in time, then they would face indictment, including the “disenfranchisement of voters.”
“Our office will take all legal action necessary to ensure that Arizona’s voters have their votes counted, including referring the individual supervisors who vote not to certify for criminal enforcement under A.R.S. 16-1010,” Lorick wrote in an email to the board.
Mohave was of the Republican-lead counties that asked for more time before certifying the votes to examine election integrity issues.
“The Secretary of State did contact our County and cited A.R.S. Section 16-1010 as a statute that could be used to prosecute [the board] if they did not certify the election,” the Mohave County Attorney, Matt Smith said.
The board’s chair-elect, Supervisor Travis Linginfelter said that “the threat of legal action, including personally, came from the Arizona State Elections Director [Kori Lorick].”
Hobbs defeated Republican candidate Kari Lake who has vowed to challenge the election results after it took days to count all of the votes.
Arizona Republicans are seeking to hold a public hearing regarding the validity of the voting machines as concerns swirl that they were not properly approved.
The legislative certification of election results is a routine process that occurs in jurisdictions across the country, legislators can object to any results during the certification process, which was on November 28.