A new judge has been assigned to oversee a legal challenge to a Senate-led audit of votes in Arizona’s largest county for the 2020 presidential election, the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County announced Monday.
Judge Daniel Martin will be taking over the case after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury, a Republican appointee, recused himself from the legal challenge on April 25.
According to a copy of the recusal, the court received filings at 4 p.m. on April 25 that included names of new attorneys, including Viskovic, who worked at the office of Coury “as an extern within the past five years.”
Viskovic now holds a position as a junior associate at Kolodin Law Group PLLC, which is representing the Florida-based cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas in court. Cyber Ninjas is one of four firms hired by the state Senate to conduct the audit.
The recusal noted that in accordance with the state’s code of judicial conduct and rules of the Arizona Supreme Court, Coury must recuse himself from any further involvement in the case.
The audit started on April 19. Companies hired by the state Senate are examining 2.1 million ballots, testing voting machines, looking for IT breaches, and performing a hand count.
The state-issued subpoenas that were needed to execute the audit were ruled as valid on Feb. 25.
Coury hasn’t been popular among Democrats, who campaigned to oust him last year from another four-year term on the bench over his ruling on an education ballot proposition called Invest in Ed.
The Superior Court has announced that all hearings previously scheduled under Coury are canceled. Each side of the legal challenge will have 10 days to tell Martin how they think the case should be handled moving forward.
