Arizona Republican official pleads guilty in election interference case

A rural Republican county official in Arizona had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after she was charged with refusing to certify the 2022 midterm results before the state deadline.

The woman, Cochise County Supervisor Peggy Judd, was indicted in November on felony charges of conspiracy and election interference after she voted to delay certifying the midterm election results. At the time, Judd, alongside fellow Republican Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby, cited unsubstantiated claims that there were issues with the machines used to tabulate ballots.

On Monday, Judd pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing or refusing to perform her duty as an election officer, allowing her to avoid a felony conviction. The charge is a class 3 misdemeanor and carries a sentencing of 90 days of unsupervised probation and a $500 fine.

“Any attempt to interfere with elections in Arizona will not be tolerated,” Kris Mayes, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement Monday. “My office will continue to pursue justice and ensure that anyone who undermines our electoral system is held accountable.”

Judd’s attorney, Kurt Altman, told the Associated Press on Monday, “We don’t have much of a comment except that she is super happy to put this behind her.”

Newsweek reached out to Altman’s firm via email on Monday for further comment.

Before the November 2022 election, Judd and Crosby had requested to conduct a full hand count of the ballots in Cochise County, although the GOP officials walked back the plan after a court said it would be illegal. They also demanded that Arizona’s secretary of state prove that vote-counting machines were legally certified before they would vote to approve the election results.

Judd and Crosby later voted to delay certifying the election results because, they argued, the voting machines were not properly certified. The third member of Cochise County’s board of supervisors, Democrat Ann English, voted to certify the election.

After Cochise County missed the state’s deadline to certify the results, then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who won her race for governor in 2022, took the board of supervisors to court, where a judge found Judd and Crosby had broken state law by delaying certification.

Crosby was also indicted last year and is set for trial in January. He has pleaded not guilty to his charges.

Judd’s plea deal comes about two weeks before the 2024 presidential election on November 5. Arizona is once again a key battleground state this election, with Vice President Kamala Harris hoping to keep the momentum that Democrats have enjoyed in the Grand Canyon State in recent years.