Judge Kevin D. White of Pinal County, Arizona, has dismissed a lawsuit from a Trump supporter challenging the election outcome in the state after the critical detail emerged that this Trump backer, Staci Burk, was not even registered to vote in this year’s presidential election. Thus, Burk “does not qualify to contest this election” under Arizona state law, White said in his Tuesday ruling, explaining that Burk “lacks standing to challenge an election in which she did not vote and could not vote.” On Monday, Burk filed a motion with the court explaining that she apparently meant to characterize herself as an “elector” rather than a “qualified elector,” but the issue “would technically call for yet another amended complaint,” White wrote — but Burk’s original lawsuit was already late.
Arizona state law sets a statute of limitations for challenges to the presidential election result, with a deadline of the fifth day after the certification of the statewide results. This year, Arizona certified its results on November 30, the fifth day after this date was December 5 — and Burk didn’t file her original lawsuit until December 7. She had to fix her filing and filed an amended complaint on December 8. As White notes, citing defendants in the case, “failure to file a complaint by the statutory deadline is a jurisdictional defect that is fatal to the action.” In other words, there’s no legal mechanism for bringing lawsuits over the election results after the deadline established in the statute of limitations has expired.
See the ruling below:
UPDATE: Pinal County Superior Court judge has tossed ‘Kraken 2.0’ suit in AZ.
‘Plaintiff by her own admission was not registered to vote for the 2020 general election. She therefore does not qualify to contest the election.’ pic.twitter.com/E9RQ8Ie78Y
— Maria Polletta🌵 (@mpolletta) December 15, 2020
The issue-riddled Arizona lawsuit is not the only embarrassing debacle to recently emerge from the Republican fight against the election outcome. On Monday, the members of the electoral college met around the country to officially cast their votes — and in a few states where Biden won, Republicans met to hold sham electoral college proceedings under the pretense of keeping Trump’s options open… or something. In states where Biden won, authorities certified Biden-supporting members of the electoral college for their respective states, as outlined in the law, and there’s no apparent legal mechanism for any legitimacy whatsoever to the so-called electoral votes from those Republicans.
Trump sounds increasingly desperate as time passes. On Tuesday, he retweeted a post from conservative lawyer Lin Wood calling for the jailing of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both of whom are Republicans and who’ve both refused to participate in Trump’s effort to steal the election. Trump’s rhetoric is a brazen danger to democracy.
