A Maricopa County Superior Court judge sent the criminal case against Arizona’s so-called fake electors back to the grand jury, which will further delay a case that has moved slowly through the courts since the original indictment came down over one year ago.
The case focuses on 18 elected officials, former state party leaders and other Republicans facing felony charges for allegedly trying to undermine Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in the state’s 2020 presidential election.
The defendants, including state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) and former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, face multiple felony charges after a grand jury indicted them in April 2024 for signing and submitting a document to Washington claiming Trump won the race.
“Sending false ballots to Congress with intent to defraud is no different than throwing a rock through the window of Congress on January 6,” Nick Klingerman, criminal division chief for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, told a judge last year.
But attorneys for the defendants argued their actions were allowable under the Electoral Count Act, a federal law that dates back to 1887. They told Judge Sam Myers last month that the document the defendants submitted to Washington was a “contingency” in the event court cases fueled by now-debunked claims of widespread voter fraud found Trump had actually won the election.
Stephen Binhak, an attorney representing former state GOP official Tyler Bowyer, said in court that his client and others who signed the document were the electors selected by the state Republican Party, who were empowered to cast Arizona’s 11 electoral votes in the event Trump won the election.
And, Binhak said, the ECA allows for those officials to submit an “alternate” slate if they believe the results of the election are in question.
“It is our position, judge, that here the state failed,” Binhak said, prosecutors failed to adequately outline that theory for grand jurors.
Myers, the judge overseeing the case, agreed.
In a May 16 order, he sent the case back to the grand jury, because “the ECA was central to the Defendant’s claims that they were acting lawfully and without an intent to defraud.”
Prosecutors with the Attorney General’s Office had argued that the grand jury was informed, because Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump attorney accused by a congressional committee of coordinating the scheme, had testified before the grand jury about the defendants’ legal theory.
Myers acknowledged that the grand jury had received some information about the ECA but found that the Attorney General’s Office should have provided jurors with the actual text of the law.
“Because the State failed to provide the ECA to the grand jury, the Court finds that the defendants were denied a substantial procedural right as guaranteed by Arizona law,” he wrote.
In a statement, Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said, “we vehemently disagree with the court and will file a special action to appeal the ruling.”
