By Howard Fischer
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PHOENIX — Abe Hamadeh can’t get a do-over of his challenge to the 2022 race for attorney general because his lawyers failed to timely investigate the issues he now wants time to review, a judge ruled Monday.

And as far as Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen is concerned, it’s simply too late.

Jantzen said Hamadeh had a chance to present his case at a hearing in December that he and not Democrat Kris Mayes should be declared the winner.

At that time, thousands of ballots were inspected. And the judge said Hamadeh offered only one witness.

“At the end of the day, the evidence showed that only about six votes difference would have been found after reviewing the numerous undercounted ballots,” Jantzen said, ballots where it was concluded that someone intended to cast a vote but the tabulating equipment did not pick it up.

What Hamadeh wants now, the judge said, is time for additional legal “discovery” to investigate if problems exist with about 8,600 provisional ballots, those which were cast at polling places but not tabulated because of questions of whether the voters were registered to vote. The argument is that Republicans have higher Election Day turnout than Democrats, meaning that counting those provisional ballots would affect a race with just an 280-vote difference.

Only thing is, Jantzen said, election challenges operate under an expedited set of rules. And there is nothing in the law to do more than the limited inspection of ballots, which he already allowed.

The judge also said that the question of those provisional ballots is “material to this case.” But he added that evidence was available in November and December — before the trial — had Hamadeh and his attorney exercised “sufficient diligence.”

“Furthermore, even considering the plaintiff’s chart showing how election day voters were trending in Maricopa County, it is still speculation to say that the difference in votes would have been made up with further discovery,” he wrote.

Jantzen was sympathetic to the problems for candidates because of time constraints for election cases that the Legislature has enacted.

“But if there is an allegation of problems with provisional ballots made in the complaint, they must be asserted in some detail at the trial not investigated later,” he said.

Hamadeh also argued evidence of human error in Pinal County after a recount provide the basis for determining if there were similar problems elsewhere. But the judge said he “has no proof.”

Nor was Jantzen convinced that Katie Hobbs, then the secretary of state, did anything wrong by failing to disclose issues in the recount before the trial in Hamadeh’s case.

“The court further finds that the evidence of the Pinal County errors would not be sufficient to be more than speculation about other errors for which there is no proof,” he wrote.

Jantzen also rejected Hamadeh’s argument that there is precedent in Arizona to show there are no artificial time lines for completing election litigation.

That is based on the decision of the Arizona Supreme Court following the 1916 gubernatorial race between incumbent George W.P. Hunt and Republican challenger Thomas Campbell. The official count put Campbell ahead by 30 votes out of approximately 60,000 cast.

It took until the following year for the high court to rule that Campbell, who had served in the interim, had in fact lost and Hunt served the balance of the two-year term.

What’s wrong with Hamadeh’s argument, Jantzen said, is that in 1916 there were no statutes covering what happens in cases of contested elections. It was only after that dispute that the first rules setting deadlines for challenges were finally put in place — rules that, while amended over the years, govern this election.

Hamadeh is not willing to concede.

“The court’s ruling is an invitation to appeal, and we will do just that,” he said in a prepared statement.