The case was brought by opponents of an unusual plan driven by local officials who question the accuracy of ballot-counting machines and want to hand-count all the ballots in the election.
An elected Republican official in rural Cochise County has agreed to take over the county election director's normal job of conducting a post- election audit of the vote count by hand, in order to expand it from a small effort using a sample of ballots to a larger one.
If the plan ends up violating the law, the elections director could face a felony charge.
The lawyers representing the retiree group grilled the Cochise County recorder. The plan is almost unprecedented in the state.
Stevens said he will use more than 250 volunteers from three political parties to count votes after Tuesday's election. He promised to follow the law for the smaller hand-count audits. The elections director in the county is responsible for securely holding the ballots.
Stevens said he would count an estimated 30,000 early ballots despite provisions in the law that limit early ballot hand-count audits to 1% or 5000 ballots. She said that bars a full hand-count.
The plan was approved by the Cochise County board of supervisors.
The court will make a decision if it's legal or not. They voted for me to do this and a 100% count, even though it was a two to one vote.
The two Republican supervisors who voted to do the 100% hand-count rather than the small sample done in every other election were pushed to do so by people who believe Donald Trump's claims that there was fraud in the election led to his loss. The hand-count was opposed by one of the Democrats on the board.
After the local county court declared a conflict, Pima County Superior Court Judge CASEY F. McGinley was asked to decide if the state law on hand-count audits allows the county to expand it to all early ballots. The Secretary of State believes only a sample of early ballots can be counted.
All the ballots can be hand-counted according to an informal opinion issued by the Republican Attorney General. A full hand-count to mollify Trump supporters is being pushed by a Nevada county and rejected by the leaders of an Arizona county.
McGinley said there was no way he would rule from the bench because the lawyers representing the county supervisors and Stevens had provided so much information.
He promised a ruling on Monday and said he expected someone to appeal.
McGinley said there was too much information presented. It is too important a question for this court to rush an answer in order to get it done by 5 o'clock today.
If Stevens strays outside the law, Marra could face a felony charge for breaking election law. She said that giving the ballots to Stevens would break the secure chain of custody for ballots and that expanding the count would endanger the certification deadline.
Attorneys for the retiree group Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans argued that the law does not allow a full hand-count of early ballots.
Stephani, who lives in the small Cochise County community of St. David, testified that she was concerned that a rushed and abnormal process could jeopardize her vote. She believes in the current system.
People have been working for a long time to come up with a process. If my county goes down this other road, I don't trust that.
McGinley focused on a section of the election rules written by the secretary of state that allows counties to expand the hand-count at their discretion, which is not in the law. He wondered how the acceptable margins of error would be applied to a full recount.
Stevens believed that a full hand-count needed no margin and that the one that turned out to be was the one that was officially certified. That is contrary to what the board discussed when it decided to do a full hand-count.
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The Associated Press has coverage of the elections.
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