Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Gass dismissed a lawsuit brought by election fraud conspiracy theorist, John Brakey, of Tucson against Secretary of State Michele Reagan and every county in Arizona over the debacle that occurred in Maricopa County during the Presidential Preference Election.
The judge took testimony over two days in which Brakey’s attorney Michael Kielsky alleged that Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell disenfranchised voters when too few polling places were open and voter-registration requests were mishandled.
Reagan’s short tenure as Secretary of State has been scarred by general incompetence. Purcell seems unable to pull off an election without controversy.
According to the Arizona Republic, “Gass questioned the credentials of the expert witnesses Kielsky and Brakey tried to present. One suggested hackers could have broken into voting databases kept by counties and the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles. Another said that voting-analysis professionals “voided” his methods because, “They don’t want to know the truth.”
Brakey attempted to “testify as an expert witness in the case,” according to the Arizona Republic, “but said under cross-examination that he had no formal computer or legal training and that he had not published peer-reviewed books or articles on the subject. He was denied the chance to testify as an expert.”
The judge found that Kielsky and Brakey had not met the burden of proof. For an election to be invalidated, there must be proof of misconduct or fraud that would change the outcome. Incompetence is not grounds for disregarding the vote.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the 60 polling locations on February 17, 2016. According to the Maricopa County response to the DOJ: “The Maricopa County Recorder/Elections Department determined that the number of polling places could be reduced by using Voting Centers. While Maricopa County has 724 voting precincts for other elections, Arizona law allows the counties to use no more than half of those precincts for a PPE. A.R.S. § 16-248(C). By using Voting Centers for the PPE, voters could cast a ballot at any voting location rather than being limited to voting only at one voting precinct. The City of Phoenix, Yuma County, and Yavapai County have successfully used Voting Centers for many years. The PPE was the first statewide election in which Maricopa County used Voting Centers.”