Cochise County certifies election results after judge's order

The Cochise County Board of Supervisors certified its election results on Thursday, three days after the legal deadline, following the orders of a judge.

• Counties are required by law to approve their canvasses within 20 days of the election.

• Critics alleged that the supervisors had violated a law, making it a Class 6 felony for an official to knowingly refuse to carry out an election-related duty.

Driving the news: The board voted 2-0 to certify its election canvass, heading off potential legal consequences.

• Republican Supervisor Peggy Judd, who'd previously resisted certifying the results, said she would follow the judge's order.
• Tom Crosby, the board's other Republican member who had also refused to approve the canvass, did not attend the meeting.

Why it matters: Without the results from Cochise County, a rural, heavily Republican enclave in the southeastern part of the state, the Secretary of State's Office would not have been able to certify the statewide canvass on Dec. 5 as scheduled.

• State law permits the secretary to delay for up to three days if he or she hasn't received the results from all 15 counties.
• Yes, but: An attorney for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told a judge that it would be impractical to do so.

• Mandatory recounts in the races for attorney general, superintendent of public instruction and a House seat in the Phoenix area cannot occur until the statewide canvass is approved.

Context: Crosby and Judd refused to certify the canvass on Monday, instead rescheduling the vote for Friday, Dec. 2, so they could also hear about the certification and reliability of ballot-tabulation machines.

• Such machines have been the source of conspiracy theories and baseless allegations for the past two years.
• Some Republicans have urged supervisors in Cochise and other counties to delay or reject certification due to unrelated Election Day problems in Maricopa County.