Attorneys for President Donald Trump's campaign and the state and national Republican parties have filed a new complaint over ballot-counting procedures in Maricopa County.
The lawsuit, filed Saturday, followed the withdrawal of another lawsuit over Arizona ballots that claimed some voters had their ballots rejected after they used Sharpies to vote. Those Sharpie claims have been thoroughly debunked by state and local election officials, as well as by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican.
→ Lawyer: Remedies In Arizona's Sharpie Suit Are Unworkable
The latest complaint alleges that in Maricopa County, some votes cast in specific races on some ballots were rejected without an appropriate, manual review.
Among millions of votes, Republican consultant Matt Benson said it is possible there were some anomalies. But that’s not the same thing as systemic fraud, as Trump has claimed.
And it’s unlikely to impact the outcome of the presidential election in Arizona.
It's going to be a high bar that the Trump campaign is going to have to meet, because they're going to have to prove this occurred, and it occurred in such numbers that it changed the results,” Benson said.
If that lawsuit fails, Benson said it won’t likely be the last.
“The logic is that if they can get enough votes in Arizona flipped, and it would only require a small number, then potentially [Trump] gets Arizona back into his column,” he said. “And then they can work on the other states where they think they have opportunities starting with Pennsylvania.”
“It's a long shot. It's a Hail Mary. But it's all they've got left at this point,” Benson added.
