The Democrats won’t post a $1 million bond and so the Arizona audit will go on.
The Arizona Mirror reports this evening:
A brief weekend pause in the Arizona Senate’s election audit that a judge ordered on Friday won’t happen because the Arizona Democratic Party declined to put up a $1 million bond that the judge requested to cover any expenses that the Senate wrongfully incurs due to the halt.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled that the audit must halt from 5 p.m. Friday to noon on Monday. But that order was contingent on the Arizona Democratic Party, which brought the lawsuit seeking to block the audit, posting a $1 million bond to cover any expenses that the Senate wrongfully incurs due to the delay. The Senate’s lease of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the audit is being conducted, ends on May 14.
The Mirror also reported:
Roopali Desai, the Democrats’ attorney, said the party won’t put up the bond. That means the audit will continue uninterrupted.
Nonetheless, the audit will still have to comply with several other orders Coury issued during a hearing on Friday. The judge ordered the Senate and its audit team to comply with all laws governing the right to a secret ballot and the confidentiality of voter registration data. He also ordered that the auditors use only red pens on the audit floor, an issue that came up after an Arizona Republic reporter who’s working as a volunteer observer noted that the auditors were using blue pens, which could irrevocably harm ballots…
…Attorney Kory Langhofer, who represents the Senate, argued that the lawsuit should be barred by lawmakers’ legislative immunity from being served with lawsuits during the legislative session. He also argued that the Democratic Party and Gallardo lack standing to sue, and that the lawsuit violates the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches.
Earlier today we reported that the audit had been stalled:
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