The state Court of Appeals has ruled Wednesday that Arizona’s counties are prohibited from conducting full hand counts in an election.

The decision comes following an appeal brought by two Republicans who control the Cochise County Board of Supervisors. 

The pair voted to hand count all early and Election Day ballots cast in the 2022 election after a machine had tabulated them. 

Appellate judge Michael F. Kelly outlined that state law lays out a detailed process for small samples of early and election day ballots to be hand counted to confirm machine tallies. 

Kelly wrote that full hand counts can only occur if a series of smaller audits find disparities with machine counts.

Skipping ahead to a full hand count, he wrote, would render the state’s multi-step audits superfluous.