AG inquiry into Maricopa County elections

The Arizona attorney general’s office has opened an inquiry into Maricopa County’s handling of the mid-term elections, demanding a full report of well-publicized irregularities and warning there is evidence of “statutory violations.”

The letter from Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s election integrity unit marks a major escalation in the dispute over how voters were treated on Election Day in the state’s largest county, where scores of ballot tabulators had problems because of printing problems.

The problems have delayed the declaration of a winner in the razor-thin state attorney general’s race and led GOP gubernatorial candidate KariLake to question as premature the media’s declaration that her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, won that race.