A Republican county supervisor in rural Arizona who refused to certify the 2022 midterm election has agreed to a plea deal, becoming the first person criminally sanctioned for refusing to certify an election since 2020.
Peggy Judd, a Republican supervisor in Cochise county, Arizona, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for failing or refusing to perform an official duty by an election officer. She will serve an unsupervised probation of at least 90 days and pay a maximum $500 fine, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, said in a press release announcing the plea deal on Monday.
Judd, who is still in office, will preside over the presidential election next month and be required to certify its results. The attorney general’s office said in court on Monday that the probation term lasted through the 2024 certification and that if Judd again refused, she would be in violation of her probation and would face up to 30 days in jail for the violation, the local outlet Capitol Media Services reported.
