Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is asking the Arizona Supreme Court to force Pinal County to comply with election laws.
The Elections Procedures Manual requires counties to allow residents to show up at any polling place and have their vote counted.
Pinal County, however, doesn’t let voters cast ballots outside of their assigned precinct.
In a recent ruling, Superior Court Judge Delia Neal agreed that Pinal County’s practice is illegal but said it’s too close to Election Day to enforce this year.
In a new filing, Fontes argues that the any-precinct rule has been in place since December, and allowing Pinal County to treat its voters differently violates the state Constitution.
"The county knew about the requirement, and chose to ignore it,'' Fontes told the justices through Assistant Attorney General Kara Karlson, who is representing his office.
And what's worse, he said, is that allowing Pinal County to avoid the law this year means that some of its voters will have their ballots ignored even as voters in similar situations in the state's other 14 counties will have their votes counted.
"The county's wrongful actions means that an Apache Junction voter who lives in Maricopa County can cast a ballot that will be counted, regardless of where it is cast, but the same voter who lives in the part of Apache Junction in Pinal County will not be provided with the correct ballot and will be entirely disenfranchised,'' Fontes told the justices. "This court should not let the county create an equal protection violation by willfully ignoring the law.''
A quick ruling is anticipated given the election is now less than two weeks away.
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Find everything you need to know about elections in Arizona and Maricopa County from KJZZ's politics team. -
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