Speaker Bowers Addresses Calls for the Legislature to Overturn 2020 Certified Election Results (PDF) (December 4, 2020)
www.azleg.gov

...This week, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and others representing President Donald Trump came to Arizona with a breathtaking request: that the Arizona Legislature overturn the certified results of last month's election and deliver the state's electoral college votes to President Trump. The rule of law forbids us to do that.

Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Ellis made their case here at least twice"on Monday, at an unofficial public gathering hosted by a small group of legislators; and again on Tuesday, during a closed-door meeting at the State Capitol with Republican leaders from both chambers of the Legislature. Both times, the Trump team made claims that the election was tainted by fraud but presented only theories, not proof. U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr said on Tuesday that he, too, has "not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome of the election." Even if such evidence existed, the Arizona Legislature simply couldn't do what is being asked. Under our state's constitution, the Legislature can act only when it is in session, and the Legislature could call itself into a special session only with the support of a bipartisan supermajority of its members.

That won't materialize, but even if did, the Legislature couldn't provide the recourse the President's team seeks. The U.S. Constitution authorizes each state to appoint presidential electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." For decades, Arizona law has required that the voters elect the state's electors on Election Day"this year, on November 3rd. And under a law the Republican-led Legislature passed just three years ago, the state's electors are required to cast their votes for the candidates who received the most votes in the official statewide election canvass. Enacted after the 2016 presidential election, in which President Trump won the electoral college but not the popular vote, the law was aimed at ensuring that Arizona's electors would remain faithful to the vote of the people.

So under current Arizona law, the presidential electors who were elected on November 3 must, after the canvass is completed, vote for the winners of the popular vote. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution or the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court even suggests that the Arizona Legislature could retroactively ...