Democratic Arizona Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs’ top deputy threatened the Mohave County Board of Supervisors with prosecution if it didn’t certify her election results before a Monday deadline, according to emails and documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

According to the Daily Caller, Arizona State Elections Director Kori Lorick wrote several letters to members of the board, warning them of criminal charges if they refused to certify the results in time. The letters included threats of lawsuits against the members for “nonfeasance,” as well, per the emails.

“The Secretary of State did contact our County and cited A.R.S. Section 16-1010 as a statute that could be used to prosecute [the board] if they did not certify the election,” said Matt Smith, the Mohave County Attorney, to the DCNF. The statute is an Arizona felony statute regarding election officials who “fail to perform their duties” under the law; as a Class 6 felony, upon conviction, it could result in up to two years’ imprisonment.

“The threat of legal action, including personally, came from the Arizona State Elections Director [Kori Lorick],” said the board’s chair-elect, Supervisor Travis Linginfelter. While prior reporting noted that the board’s members were warned of prosecution by their counsel, the board’s members have now stated that the threats came from Lorick, who reports to Hobbs, as well.

“Our office will take all legal action necessary to ensure that Arizona’s voters have their votes counted, including referring the individual supervisors who vote not to certify for criminal enforcement under A.R.S. 16-1010,” Lorick wrote in an email to the board obtained by the DCNF. Governor-elect Hobbs has neither resigned as Secretary of State nor recused herself from election oversight and certification.

Lorick also sent a letter to the board warning that their voters could be “disenfranchised” if they did not certify by the deadline. The letter, obtained exclusively by the DCNF from Lingenfelter, states that the board “has a non-discretionary duty to canvass the returns of the election,” and that a failure to do so “will only serve to disenfranchise that county’s voters,” mirroring her warnings to other GOP-led counties that their votes “may be excluded” from the final tallies, thereby affecting results.

The Mohave County board eventually certified the results of the election on Monday, Nov. 28, before the deadline expired, though the threat of individual legal consequences for members may have altered their willingness to delay certification, like Cochise. During the video broadcast of the canvas meeting of the board, Supervisor and Chair Ron Gould mentioned that the actions were “under duress.”

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