Arizona Supreme Court Rules Against AZ GOP Sanctions

The courts are becoming a challenge for Democrats in their fight to deter challenges to election results.

In its latest ruling, the Arizona Supreme Court found that the Arizona GOP should not have been fined for its 2020 election lawsuit.

The court blasted the sanctions, saying they sent the wrong message to citizens who had questions about the election.

Bad Move

After the 2020 election had been finalized, the Arizona GOP challenged the hand-count process.

To be clear, plenty of Democrats have challenged election results in the past, but they were never treated the way Republicans were in the wake of Trump's challenges to Biden's winning in 2020.

The Arizona Supreme Court issued a blistering ruling in favor of the AZ GOP, stating, “By sanctioning parties and their lawyers for bringing debatable, long-shot complaints, courts risk chilling legal advocacy and citizens raising ‘questions’ under the guise of defending the rule of law.

“Even if done inadvertently and with the best of intentions, such sanctions present a real and present danger to the rule of law.”

This overturns the lower court's decision that would have forced the AZ GOP to pay all legal fees for the Secretary of State in its defense of the case.

The Arizona Republican Party was obviously happy with the ruling, stating, “This ruling reaffirms the fundamental legal principle that raising questions about the interpretation and application of election laws is a legitimate use of the judicial system, not a groundless or bad faith action.

“We remain committed to ensuring that election laws are followed precisely, upholding the integrity of our electoral process.”

The deciding factor, in this case, is whether or not the GOP filed the suit thinking they had legitimate beef or if the case was groundless, meaning if the case was filed in good faith or not.

We have seen courts rule that many of the lawsuits filed in defense of Trump were deemed to have been without merit and frivolous, but this was not one of them.