Arizona Judge Rejects Most Claims in Kari Lake Election-Fraud Lawsuit
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A judge rejected on Monday eight out of ten claims of election fraud made by former Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, allowing only two specific allegations to be heard in court.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson admitted two of Lake’s claims for an upcoming trial, at which her team must prove malfeasance by election officials to rig the race for Lake’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. The two-day trial must be conducted by January 2.
Lake has “alleged intentional misconduct sufficient to affect the outcome of the election and thus has stated an issue of fact that requires going beyond the pleadings,” Thompson’s order read. The plaintiffs, who have asked that the court declare Lake the winner or order a recount, must demonstrate that Maricopa County’s tabulator issues were a part of an opposition scheme and that such alleged manipulation did cost her the election, which she lost by 17,000 votes.
The two claims the judge allowed to survive were that a county employee interfered illegally with the printers “resulting in some number of lost votes” for Lake” and that an election-equipment firm added ballots to the county’s total that were not properly documented, AZCentral reported. The second would be a chain-of-custody violation.
“Plaintiff must show at trial that the [Election Day] printer malfunctions were intentional, and directed to affect the results of the election, and that such actions did actually affect the outcome,” Thompson said.
On Election Day, 31 percent of polling places in Maricopa county experienced printing problems that caused some ballots to be unreadable to some precinct-based tabulators. While the malfunction was being fixed, Maricopa County defaulted to its alternative manual-voting method at affected polling locations, by which voters could place completed ballots into the secure ballot box below the tabulator.
However, Lake, who stoked former president Trump’s unfounded narrative that the 2020 election was “stolen,” told supporters not to trust the “Door 3” option. Last month, an election-integrity report concluded that the voting process was not undermined by the mishap.
“While Maricopa County’s printer issue in 2022 impacted more Vote Centers than normal, every voter was afforded the ability to legally and securely cast their ballot,” the report read.
Lake’s attorneys have since argued that the election was plagued by systemic problems and potential illegal activity that disenfranchised “tens of thousands” of voters.
After a week-long vote counting period, Lake lost by a margin of over 17,000 votes. However, Lake alleged that many illegitimate ballots flooded the system. One of Lake’s lawyers, named Olsen, said tens of thousands of ballots should not have passed voter-signature verification.
Thompson permitted Lake’s team, starting Tuesday, to inspect a handful of printed and early ballots from the election, including 50 that were marked “spoiled” on Election Day, AZCentral noted.
Lake’s team also targeted the Arizona secretary of state’s office, which Hobbs presides over, for helping to suppress allegedly inaccurate tweets about Arizona’s elections.
“This case is also about a secret censorship operation set up by the government that would make Orwell blush,” a Lake attorney said during a Monday hearing.
Hobbs’s lawyers claimed that Lake’s election complaint was invalid, as it failed to make specific allegations of fraud backed up by evidence as required by Arizona law. The lawsuit did not assert fraud occurred nor that fraud affected the outcome of the election, therefore it is not a serious petition, Hobbs’s lawyer said, according to the Arizona outlet.
