Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like the 4,000 breathless "Breaking" posts the Trump rube cult posted about judicial procedures that the rubes thought would overturn the 2020 election that never happened.
Here's the ruling. It takes a whole 10 seconds to find, and not much more to read.
II. Sufficiency of Petition
Plaintiff requests the following inspection items pursuant to A.R.S. § 16-677(B):
1) Fifty randomly selected “ballot-on-demand” (BOD) printed ballots cast on Election Day from six vote centers in Maricopa County chosen by her representative,
2) Fifty randomly selected early ballots cast in the 2022 general election from six separate Maricopa County batches chosen by her representative,
3) Fifty randomly selected early ballot envelopes for early ballots cast in Maricopa County in the 2022 general election, and
4) Fifty randomly selected BOD printed ballots that were marked spoiled on Election Day from six separate Maricopa County vote centers chosen by her representative.
The Defendants correctly emphasize that “election contests are purely statutory,” see Grounds v. Lawe, 67 Ariz. 176, 186 (1948), and so are dependent on statutory provisions for their conduct, see Fish v. Redeker, 2 Ariz. App. 602, 605 (1966). Arizona’s election contest statutes provide that, “[a]fter the statement of contest has been filed and the action is at issue, either party
may have the ballots inspected before preparing for trial.” A.R.S. § 16-677(A). To do so, the applying party must “file with the clerk of the court a verified petition stating that he cannot properly prepare for trial without an inspection of the ballots. A.R.S. § 16-677(B).
The Defendants do not challenge that Plaintiff “stat[ed]” in her petition “that he cannot properly prepare for trial without an inspection of the ballots,” see A.R.S. § 16-677(B), but they argue she still fails to meet that statutory requirement because ballot inspection cannot help her prepare to prosecute the specific allegations of her election contest, and the legislature intended
that ballot inspection should only be allowed “when such inspection really is necessary” to prepare for trial. They support this assertion of the legislature’s intent by noting that Arizona law generally prohibits public inspection of ballots and that statutory grounds to contest elections that involve ballots include challenges to information included on ballots. See A.R.S. § 16-672(4) (on account of illegal votes) and (5) (erroneous count of votes). ...
Plaintiff’s specific inspection requests (1), (2), and (4) are for a limited number of ballots unlikely to unduly burden Maricopa County or require much time before trial to complete. They are requests for ballot inspections as the statute requires. However, request (3), for inspection of early ballot envelopes, moves beyond the statutory scope of permitted inspection. Early-ballot return envelopes are not themselves ballots, even if they arrive as a “package” as Plaintiff argues. The defendants are correct that ballots—unlike the return envelopes—do not contain signatures. Indeed, they cannot, as the Arizona Constitution requires that “secrecy in voting shall be preserved,” by any voting method prescribed by the legislature. See Ariz. Const. Art. 7 § 1. Thus, inspection request (3) is denied because it is not authorized by the inspection statute and such an inspection would violate the Arizona Constitution. Plaintiff is entitled to her other three requests.
IOW, they're going to inspect 150 ballots because, hey, why not? It doesn't provide a burden on the state and they have that right anyways.
Keep clinging, rubes!
LOL
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