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Cochise County supervisors face felony charges for delay in certifying 2022 election results • Arizona Mirror [1]
['Caitlin Sievers', 'More From Author', '- November']
Date: 2023-11
Two Cochise County supervisors have been charged with felonies for delaying the certification of last November’s election results.
Republicans Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd were both indicted Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court on charges of conspiracy and interference with an election officer.
After most of the Republicans running for major state offices lost their races on Nov. 8, 2022, county supervisors across the state faced intense pressure not to certify the results of the election, with members of the public claiming, with no proof, that the losses were due to fraud.
The two supervisors voted to delay the certification, citing bogus claims that their ballot tabulators weren’t properly certified. The third member of the board, Democrat Ann English, was the lone dissenting vote.
But ultimately Cochise was the only county in the state that missed the Nov. 28 certification deadline, putting all of the mostly-Republican votes in the county in jeopardy. Crosby and Judd only reversed course after then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs took them to court and a judge ordered them to certify.
“The repeated attempts to undermine our democracy are unacceptable,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “I took an oath to uphold the rule of law, and my office will continue to enforce Arizona’s elections laws and support our election officials as they carry out the duties and responsibilities of their offices.”
In the indictment, the Attorney General’s Office accuses both supervisors of knowingly planning to disobey the law — something they did in full view, during public meetings — thus interfering with Hobbs’ ability to complete the statewide canvas of votes by the Dec. 5 deadline.
After the judge ordered the supervisors to certify the results, Judd said that she knew changing her vote would upset some people.
“I can’t say enough about how important this effort is that we made and I am not ashamed of anything that I did,” Judd said, before ultimately voting to certify.
A Pima County Judge in April ordered Judd and Crosby to pay $36,000 in legal fees that the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans incurred after they sued the supervisors for failing to certify the election results.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors has been at the center of ample election conspiracy debate, not only attempting to delay vote certification last year, but also for its attempt to hand count ballots amid untruthful claims that hand counts are more accurate and less susceptible to fraud than machine counts.
Cochise County Superior Court blocked the county from conducting a hand count last November, saying a full hand count is unlawful, and an Arizona appeals court in October confirmed that finding.
Neither Judd nor Crosby immediately responded to requests for comment.
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