The Arizona Supreme Court denied a request for an emergency petition to extend the deadline to correct mail-in ballots.
This petition came from the American Civil Liberties Union, which asked to allow voters with problems on their ballots four days to fix them. According to state law, the deadline is at the end of the workday five days following an election, which, in this most recent cycle, was Sunday at 5 p.m. Mountain time.
None of the responding counties asked the court for an extension and instead claimed they all made reasonable efforts to contact voters with problem ballots. Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, the Republican National Committee, and the Navajo Nation submitted amicus briefs against the petition, which the court sided with.
“Thus, the Court is not presented with evidence that any voters will be prevented from curing a defective ballot by today’s 5:00 p.m. deadline,” the court’s order read. “In short, there is no evidence of disenfranchisement before the Court.”
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By the time the ACLU filed the petition on Saturday, there were roughly over 67,000 ballots still to be processed. By late Sunday evening, that number dwindled to just over 33,000, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
The race was called in President-elect Donald Trump’s favor late Saturday with 87% of the vote. However, the House races are within a much narrower margin, and the U.S. Senate race is close, with a difference of over 66,000 votes.