PHOENIX — Calling what Secretary of State Adrian Fontes proposed "utterly without precedent'' and comparing it to a nuclear weapon, a federal judge blocked him from refusing to include a county's vote in the statewide totals if local supervisors fail to certify the election's results.

In the ruling late Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi acknowledged there was at least one attempt in the past by a board of supervisors to delay certification. That action threatened to hold up the formal canvass of all the votes throughout the state and to change the outcomes of some races.

But Liburdi said the solution Fontes incorporated in Arizona's Elections Procedures Manual — allowing him to skip over uncertified votes simply to finalize the state results — would unfairly and illegally disenfranchise the voters who had cast their ballots.

Consider, Liburdi said, what would happen if supervisors balked in Maricopa County, the state's most populous, where 2.4 million people vote.

Under the rules Fontes, an elected Democrat, enacted in the manual, he would be permitted to certify the state results without including those votes — meaning the results would be determined by votes only from the other 14 counties.

"If the right to vote is the right of qualified voters within a state to cast their ballots and have them counted, then the canvass provision imposes the most severe burden: state-sanctioned disenfranchisement.

...

"A registered voter in Arizona may perfectly comply with all voting requirements and obligations but nonetheless have her vote excluded based on the mal- or nonfeasance of public officials."

"A nuclear weapon does not become any less dangerous simply because a world leader avows never to unleash it.

...

"The canvass provision imposes a nuclear-level burden on voting rights.

"It is a weapon in the secretary's arsenal that he has discretion to use should the circumstances present themselves — a weapon that does not become any less threatening simply because the secretary is self-professedly 'committed' to not pulling the trigger.''

Strictly speaking, Liburdi's order does not void the provision of the manual. That would take a full-blown trial. But it does preclude Fontes from enforcing or relying on that provision this year.

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...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election...

The challengers in the lawsuit, two groups with ties to Republican interests, also convinced Liburdi to bar Fontes from enforcing another provision dealing with speech and actions permitted in and around voting locations.

That language would have prohibited "any activity by a person with the intent or effect of threatening, harassing, intimidating, or coercing voters — inside or outside the 75-foot limit at a voting location.''