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The two Republican board members in Cochise County, Arizona have decided not to certify their election out of protest.

They do not contend that Cochise County had fraud, indeed Cochise went hard for Republicans accross the board: Masters won 54-42%, Lake won 58-40%, and, crucially, in House District 6, Republican Juan Ciscomani beat Democrat Kirsten Engel 67-31%, or by almost 14,000 votes.

If Cochise County does not certify its election, by Arizona law, its ballots are discarded. This will not impact the elections of Hobbs or Kelly, merely will increase their margin of victory, however Ciscomani only beat Engel by about 3000 votes. If Cochise County's ballots are discared, then that seat flips from Republican to Democrat.

If the board has still refused to certify by the Dec. 5 deadline for state certification (which can be extended to Dec. 8, but no later), the law requires that the secretary of state still move ahead with the statewide canvass of results. In that case, the statewide canvass would not include the results from Cochise County, which is heavily Republican.

This mass disenfranchisement of Cochise County voters − at the hands of their own board of supervisors − could result in flipping the final results in a number of tight races, with Republican candidates and voters paying the price. For example, Republican Juan Ciscomani would likely lose his congressional race to Democrat Kirsten Engel.

Were Hobbs a pure creature of the Party, she could choose not to apply pressure to the board members, which would benefit the Democrats, however as secretary of state it is her obligation to sue these people as:

The law gives the board of supervisors no authority or discretion whatsoever to refuse this mandate. In fact, Arizona law plainly states that the supervisors board “has a non-discretionary duty to canvass the returns as provided by the County Recorder or other officer in charge of elections and has no authority to change vote totals or reject the election results.” And a refusal to comply can even expose members of the board to criminal liability.

Of course, ardent conservatives are up-in-arms that Hobbs would sue as this is somehow a conflict of interest, since she won the Governor's race in this "fradulent" election.