By Howard Fischer
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PHOENIX - Saying any delays in the case are his own fault, lawyers for Kris Mayes are asking the Arizona Supreme Court to rebuff a bid by Abe Hamadeh to now jump in the middle of his bid for a new trial in his effort to overturn the race for attorney general.

In a new legal filing, Alexis Danneman told the justices that the original trial came to an end more than seven months ago. At that time, she said, Hamadeh's legal team acknowledged that it did not have enough evidence to prove their claim that he had gotten more votes.

"But also, they took no new steps to expedite review of various rulings about which they now complain,'' Danneman said.

In fact, she said, Hamadeh's lawyers have yet to ask Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen for a final judgment. That would allow them to seek Court of Appeals review of his decision using the regular process.

On top of that, Danneman argued to the justices that there is nothing that requires their immediate intervention.

"Attorney General Mayes was sworn into office on Jan. 2, 2023, over seven months ago,'' she told the court.

But Danneman is asking the high court to do more than simply spurn Hamadeh's request for immediate intervention. She also wants an order for the GOP contender to pay Mayes' legal fees for having to fight his latest bid.

Even if the justices agree with Mayes and refused to intercede at this point, that doesn't end the fight over who was elected as attorney general.

Hamadeh still would retain the option of going through the normal appellate process. But that would only further delay a final ruling on who gets to serve in the office through the end of 2026.

In seeking Supreme Court intervention, Hamadeh and his allies at the Republican National Committee, who also sued, claimed he was not given enough time to prepare his arguments that he outpolled Mayes.

One issue is that some people who turned out on Election Day were given "provisional'' ballots because they were not listed as registered, ballots that were never included in the final tally. Hamadeh contends that was in error, that those Election Day ballots would have skewed in his favor, and he wants time to investigate further.

He also wanted to examine more than the 2,300 ballots from three counties that his team was allowed to see if some votes were not properly tabulated.