Kris Mayes loses Arizona Supreme Court appeal in fake elector case
Kris Mayes lost another round in the Arizona fake elector case on Thursday, when the Arizona Supreme Court denied her office’s appeal over an order sending the case back to a grand jury. Mayes’s office said it will again present the case in its entirety to a grand jury.
The ruling sends the prosecution back to the start of the charging process after a lower-court judge in Phoenix concluded in May that the first grand jury had not been shown the text of the Electoral Count Act. The case involves 18 defendants and has already been slowed by 12 dismissal requests from defense lawyers.
Mayes and the Arizona grand jury
Mayes’s office said it will again present the case in its entirety to a grand jury after the state’s highest court rejected the appeal. The decision was released Thursday and marked another setback for the attorney general in a case filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election.
The case centers on allegations tied to Arizona’s 2020 presidential vote, which Joe Biden won by 10,457 votes. It is one of several fake elector cases still active in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Electoral Count Act issue
A Phoenix judge found in May that the first grand jury was not shown the text of the Electoral Count Act, a 19th century law governing the certification of presidential contests. That ruling led the next judge on the case to send it back to a grand jury, setting up the appeal that failed on Thursday.
The legal dispute also comes after the Electoral Count Act was amended in 2022 to specify that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that the governor would sign off. That text sits at the center of the challenge that forced the case back into grand jury proceedings.
Defendants in the case
The Arizona fake elector case charges 18 defendants, including two former Trump aides, five lawyers working for Trump and 11 Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona. Three defendants have resolved their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
Others named in the case include Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani. Mark L. Williams said after the court’s decision, "In my mind, the whole thing is meritless." He also said, "Mr. Giuliani has done nothing wrong."
The new grand jury presentation extends a prosecution that has already been delayed by recusal, dismissal fights and the court ruling that sent the matter back for review. The state now has to rebuild the case before jurors before the charging path can move forward again.
