A state judge in Arizona has ordered sanctions against former GOP candidate Mark Finchem after the Republican filed a lawsuit to challenge his midterm election loss last year that was ruled to be “groundless and not brought in good faith.”
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian made the ruling on March 1, handing a win to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who filed a motion in December seeking sanctions against Finchem, whom he defeated in the midterm elections. Julian ruled in favor of Fontes, arguing Finchem’s allegations that thousands of Republicans were disenfranchised were untrue.
Going further, Julian ruled that even if Finchem’s allegations were correct, it still would not have been enough for him to win the election. In an expert analysis commissioned by Finchem, officials flagged 80,000 “potentially missing votes” — far below the margin of 120,208 votes he lost by. “None of Contestant Finchem’s allegations, even if true, would have changed the vote count enough to overcome the 120,000 votes he needed to affect the result of this election,” Julian wrote. “That margin was so significant that even if it were assumed that 80,000 votes were missing and that those votes would all have been cast in his favor, the result of the election would not have changed.
As part of the ruling, Finchem is required to pay the legal fees accrued by Fontes’s office to defend against the allegations. It’s not yet clear how much Finchem will have to pay, as Fontes has 20 days to submit an application for repayment.
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