Arizona's 6th Congressional District

[Voluntarist]

GOP county's refusal to certify election results could flip result of Arizona House seat

A rural GOP county in Arizona could cost its own party a House seat in an already narrow majority if it does not certify its election results.

Republican Juan Ciscomani is the projected winner for Arizona's 6th Congressional District. Despite being regarded as a rising star in his party, however, he could lose his seat to Democrat Kirsten Engel because the GOP-controlled supervisors of Cochise County voted on Monday to delay the certification of the results from the midterm elections despite the Nov. 28 deadline and without evidence of problems with the local counts.

The county's decision risks excluding close to 47,000 Arizonans' votes and could eliminate the 38,706 votes cast for Ciscomani, per the county's report logs.
...
The Associated Press called the race with Ciscomani receiving 50.7% of the votes, a narrow win over Engel with 49.3%. However, statewide results without Cochise County's numbers would reportedly flip the seat in favor of Engel. A state schools chief seat would also flip for the Democrats.

[Anti Globalist]

What a surprise. Delaying the certification of an election to benefit a Democratic candidate.

[Voluntarist]

What a surprise. Delaying the certification of an election to benefit a Democratic candidate.

Well, the GOP are the ones responsible for the delay. GOP County, GOP control. They're shooting themselves in the foot.

Cochise County Supervisor Ann English, the lone Democrat on the board, said, "There is no reason for us to delay," per NPR. However, she was outvoted by GOP Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd.

[Voluntarist]

Arizona’s Cochise County certifies election following court order

The Cochise County, Ariz., board of supervisors certified the county’s election results on Thursday, after a state judge ruled that it was unlawful for two GOP supervisors not to certify the results by the state’s legal deadline.

The board voted 2-0 to certify the results from the Nov. 8 midterm elections, with one supervisor not attending Thursday’s emergency meeting. The vote allows state officials in Arizona to move forward with next Monday’s statewide certification.

[Occam's Banana]

Can some small-"d" democrat explain what the point of "certification" is if the "certifiers" can simply be ordered to "certify" by non-"certifiers"?

Aside from giving small-"b" bureaucrats the pro forma opportunity to play with their rubber stamps, what's the point?

[Voluntarist]

Can some small-"d" democrat explain what the point of "certification" is if the "certifiers" can simply be ordered to "certify" by non-"certifiers"?

Aside from giving small-"b" bureaucrats the pro forma opportunity to play with their rubber stamps, what's the point?

I'm not a small-"d" democrat, because I'm against the whole concept of "50% + 1" being able to tell the other "50% - 1" what to do ... but as an observer of "the sport", I guess I'd be interested in what the governing law or statute defines the whole process to be: what certification consists of, who's responsible for what, deadlines, what happens if deadlines aren't met, things like that. For all I know, "certification" might be something as simple as the county assuring the state that the county has collected, collated and reported the votes reported to it by each of its precincts at the time of the deadline.

I've been led to believe that if a county fails to certify by the deadline, then that county's votes are omitted from the state's totals; but I haven't seen it specified in statute, so I really can't be sure. I guess it all boils down to what the statute/process says is to happen when a county fails to certify on time (and it's used up all of its timeouts, lol).

Edited to add:
Here's the website for Arizona Election Laws & Publications:
... which points to the Elections Procedures Manual