Judge dismisses Republican Party lawsuit seeking audit of Arizona county's ballots

Washington [US], November 20 : A judge on Thursday (local time) rejected a Republican party lawsuit seeking an audit of ballots in Arizona's biggest county, which helped flip the state to the Democrats for the first time in over 20 years.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice and denied the Arizona GOP's request for an audit of the county's results, which would likely have delayed its certification of the vote tallies, reported The Hill.
An order outlining the judge's reasoning is expected later on Thursday.
The lawsuit filed last week accuses Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and its metro area, of violating state law by doing away with its precinct voting model this election, allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling centre in the county as opposed to one in a particular district within the county.
"Arizona voters deserve to have complete trust in their election procedures. They should also have supreme confidence that only legal ballots were counted in the 2020 election....Failure to address their concerns actively harms our state and our nation. Because of this, I stand by my call for a full hand-count audit of our state's election results," The Hill quoted Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward in a statement.
President-elect Joe Biden was projected to win Arizona by 0.3 per cent, making him the first Democrat to take the state since former President Bill Clinton won it in his re-election race in 1996.
Since Biden's projected victory in the presidential polls, Trump has made allegations that election was rigged and has refused to concede defeat to Biden, while his campaign has filed several lawsuits in battleground states.