By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- A Senate panel will hold hearings on what happened with the just-completed election with an eye on answering questions of whether it was conducted fairly and legally.
But the hearing authorized by Senate President won't be the kind of meeting being demanded by some House Republicans, led by Reps. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley and Kelly Townsend of Mesa who want to immediately issue subpoenas for officials to testify and orders to seize election equipment for examination.
In fact, they won't even have a role as the meeting will consist entirely of senators and the people they ask to testify. And they can't even show up to protest: The event will be conducted entirely online as the Senate building is closed for the week amid concerns of spread of COVID-19.
The move comes as attorneys for the state's 11 would-be Republican electors asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to overturn Wednesday decision by a federal judge here tossing out their multi-faceted complaint alleging fraud, misconduct and other irregularities in last month's election. Judge Diane Humetewa said they not only failed to present evidence but lacked legal standing to challenge the results awarding the state's electoral votes to Democrat Joe Biden.
Only thing is, any victory could prove little more than academic.
The appellate judges said they want opening briefs by March 23, giving Gov. Doug Ducey and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs until April 21 to respond. Absent any effort to expedite the case, that could mean no decision until well into Biden's first term.
But there is a move now to take the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to expedite it.
Meanwhile a Pinal County judge has scheduled a hearing for Friday afternoon on a bid by Staci Burk, a former member of the Gilbert school board, to void the election results and require Ducey and Hobbs to de-certify the returns. But the chances of that going to trial are slim as Burk, who is representing herself, has essentially filed a carbon copy of the lawsuit just dismissed by Humetewa.
That may leave only the Senate hearing as the sole venue to air questions about the conduct of the election.
"There is no agenda,'' said Fann, a Prescott Republican.
"A lot of our constituents have a lot of questions about how the voting, the electoral system works, the security of it, the validity of it,'' Fann told Capitol Media Services. "So we need to ask some questions and have somebody go through the process with us of what was done, how it was done, why it was done -- and what else could we do to verify the votes were correct and accurate.''
While Fann said there is no agenda, she acknowledged what is off the table is having the Republican-controlled legislature vote to overturn the results, a move that would allow lawmakers to select their own slate of electors.
Some of that is strictly practical: The 11 electors pledged to Biden are due to formally cast their ballots on Monday. But there's more.
"Given current legal advice, there's nothing the legislative body can do,'' Fann said.
That is based on advice from legal counsel that option was precluded three years ago when lawmakers approved a measure spelling out that electors are required to cast their votes for the candidate who received the most votes according to the official statewide election canvass. The lawyers said while lawmakers are free to change the law for future elections they cannot do so retroactively.
But Fann acknowledged there are others who argue that it's not too late to overturn the results, even if the electors cast their vote as scheduled on Monday.
That's based on the fact that the Electoral College tally is not really final until Jan. 6 when Congress meets to formally approve the vote. And there are those who argue that federal lawmakers could decide not to accept the results from states where the outcome might be clouded by allegations of fraud or misconduct.
Many of those allegations surround the equipment and software of Dominion Voting Systems used in Maricopa County.
There are multiple charges that the software was designed by a foreign firm that eventually became part of Dominion to achieve pre-desired results. Those fighting the returns say that spikes in ballots at certain hours showed that the equipment was purposely adding votes to Biden.
Fann said the committee can take a look at that if it wants to.
"We can request that there be an audit on the Dominion software and on any hardware and to make sure that the machines weren't hooked up to the internet,'' she said. "We can make sure that none of it was tampered with.''
While there will be some focus on the 2020 vote, Fann also is looking ahead at changes in state election laws that may be necessary.
To that end, she named Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, to the Senate Judiciary Committee which will be conducting the hearing.
Officially speaking, the committee is still being run by Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Chandler. But he did not seek reelection and his term ends when the new legislature is sworn in next month.
Ugenti-Rita will chair that panel for the next two years. And Fann said she wants her involved in these hearings.
"There might be some valuable information that comes out of this that she may want to pursue further in the future if it looks like we need to make some adjustments in election laws so we don't go through all this again -- we hope,'' Fann said.