Actions

Trump campaign files lawsuit in Arizona for 'rejected votes' in Maricopa County

Posted at 5:10 PM, Nov 07, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-09 00:26:06-05

PHOENIX — The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have filed a lawsuit in Arizona, claiming Maricopa County poll workers "incorrectly rejected votes" cast by in-person voters on Election Day.

The lawsuit alleges when the voting machine detected an "overvote" on a ballot, the poll workers told in-person voters to "press, a green button to override the error." This reportedly caused the machine to dismiss the voter's choices in the overvoted races, according to the Trump campaign.

"Upon information and belief, the adjudication and tabulation of these ballots will prove determinative of the outcome of the election for President of the United States in Arizona and/or other contested offices in Maricopa County," the lawsuit states.

The campaign says they have received information from voters who say they witnessed the problem and that it happened on a large scale in the county.

“Poll workers struggled to operate the new voting machines in Maricopa County, and improperly pressed and told voters to press a green button to override significant errors,” said Matt Morgan, Trump 2020 campaign general counsel said in a statement. “The result is that the voting machines disregarded votes cast by voters in person on Election Day in Maricopa County.”

The lawsuit urges for "the manual inspection of purportedly overvoted ballots that were cast in-person, the same way that elections officials examined overvoted ballots that were mailed in or dropped off," according to a press release from the Trump campaign.

Read the full lawsuit below, or click here:

The lawsuit was announced Saturday evening, following projections earlier in the day that Joe Biden had won the presidency after Pennsylvania was called for the former vice president.

Sunday, ABC15 learned that one of the firms representing the Trump campaign, Snell and Wilmer, filed a notice of withdrawal of counsel, asking the judge to be withdrawn from the lawsuit. The judge has to grant the withdrawal.

The suit is one of multiple filed by Trump's campaign in states that were reporting close margins between Trump and Biden.