On Tuesday, a state judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by Abraham Hamadeh, Arizona Republican attorney general candidate, challenging this month’s election. He argued that it was prematurely filed.

Randall Warner, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, said that Hamadeh and Republican National Committee, who joined the suit, can’t file an election contest until Arizona certifies the election. This is currently scheduled for Monday.

Hamadeh trails his Democratic opponent by just 510 votes from more than 2.5million ballots before an automatic recount. He claimed that malfunctions in Arizona’s most populous jurisdiction, and elsewhere, altered the results and suggested that the tabulations be modified and he should be declared winner.

Warner’s order did not address the merits of the allegations. However, it noted that Hamadeh could file the lawsuit once the election is certified by state officials. This indicates that he doesn’t need to wait for the recount.

Warner wrote, “Under these statutes, there can be no electoral contest until after the canvassing and declaration of result because, up until then, nobody is ‘declared elected’.”

Erica Knight, a spokesperson for Hamadeh, stated that he will refile his case following the statewide canvass.

Knight stated that the merits of this lawsuit are still valid.

Hamadeh’s lawsuit is just one of many Republican legal challenges to Arizona elections this year.

GOP officials have taken advantage of Election Day printer problems in Maricopa County. This area is home to about 60% of Arizona’s population. They are arguing that voters in the area were not eligible for voting.

Officials from the county have admitted to the errors, but said that affected voters could use one of several backup options.

The county’s Republican-controlled board certified its vote canvass on Monday after the state’s GOP and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, called for a delay.

In her capacity as Arizona’s secretary-of-state, Hobbs lambasted Hamadeh’s suit in court filings. She noted the procedural issues and also argued that the suit seeks “to thwart the will to the people.”

Hobbs’s lawyers wrote that an election contest must be based on facts known to Plaintiffs at the time a contest is filed. They should not be based on wild speculation intended to undermine the work of Arizona’s election officials.

Hamadeh’s Democratic opponent Kris Mayes had also opposed the suit, calling it a fishing expedition to undermine Arizona’s elections.

All 15 Arizona counties were certified by Monday’s deadline.

Supervisors in Republican-leaning Cochise County voted against the deadline. This quickly sparked two legal challenges by Hobbs and Marc Elias, a progressive election lawyer.

Arizona law requires that state officials must certify the election on Monday, unless they have received a certified canvass form from a county.

State officials would have to wait until Dec. 8 if Cochise County fails to certify before they could count votes.