Friday, a federal judge rejected to prohibit an activist organization from monitoring outdoor ballot boxes in Arizona’s most populous county, despite fears of voter intimidation, citing the group’s constitutional rights.
Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi rendered the decision.
As midterm elections approach, the issue has gained national significance after stories of armed men patrolling outdoor drop boxes in Maricopa County — the state’s most populous county — and remote Yavapai County.
In Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, armed men reportedly positioned themselves near a drop box last week.
It resulted in legal action as activists sought to avoid voter intimidation.
Mark Brnovich, the Republican attorney general of Arizona, has urged voters to immediately report any intimidation to police and submit a complaint with his office.
This week, the state’s secretary of state said that her office had forwarded six potential examples of voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a threatening email sent to the state elections director.
The state is a focal point for disputes over voter rights and election fraud.
President Joe Biden won the contested state by less than 10,000 votes, overturning decades of Republican dominance.
The outcome sparked a number of conspiracy theories regarding its possible causes.
Multiple investigations, including a biased ‘audit’ of Maricopa County by Cyber Ninjas, a group hired by the Republicans, concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud in 2020.
These conspiracies have spurred several efforts to monitor voting this time around.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona committed to prosecute any violations of federal law, but stated that local police were responsible for ensuring that all eligible voters can exercise their right to vote without intimidation or other election abuses.
The office stated on Wednesday that it will actively protect the rights of all Arizonans to vote freely and legally during elections.
Acts which cross the line will not go unpunished, as seen by the several election threat-related federal felony prosecutions pending from alleged criminal behavior originating in our state.
In the first complaint, Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino urged Liburdi on Wednesday to prohibit members of Clean Elections USA from congregating around drop boxes in Maricopa County, following voters, and photographing and videotaping them and their vehicles.
Such a sweeping restraining order, according to the attorney for Clean Elections USA, would be unlawful.
The Citizens Clean Elections Commission, a state organization, decided Thursday overwhelmingly to have its legal counsel seek a court order, if necessary, to prevent the monitoring group from using the ‘Clean Elections’ name. The commission established in 1998 to give unbiased election information to voters reported receiving a flood of angry phone calls from individuals mistaking it for the monitoring group.
In the second action that was consolidated with the first, ballot boxes are at issue.
In Yavapai County, Arizona, Clean Elections USA, The Lions of Liberty, and the Yavapai County Preparedness squad, which are affiliated with the far-right anti-government group Oath Keepers, allegedly intimidated voters, according to the League of Women Voters.
Luke Cilano, a Lions of Liberty board member, stated on Wednesday that the organization has abandoned its “Operation Drop Box” effort “due to being lumped in with those who do not follow the law and our terms of engagement.”
The ‘formal stand down order’ that Cilano issued to all members was in response to the ongoing litigation, he explained.
“Our objective is not to discourage people from voting,” he stated. We adore our nation tremendously.
The Lions of Liberty is in no way affiliated with Clean Elections USA, according to Cilano. He stated that his organization is affiliated with the Yavapai County Preparedness Squad, but that the team did not participate in vote box monitoring.
Similar groups around the United States have embraced the discredited film ‘2000 Mules,’ which asserts that people were hired to travel between ballot drop boxes and pack them with fraudulent ballots during the 2020 presidential election.
There is no indication that a network of Democrat-affiliated ‘ballot mules’ has conspired to collect and deliver ballots to drop boxes for the 2020 presidential election or the approaching midterms.